The American Myth

or, Freedom and Equality as Oil and Water - or, my time as an expat - or, why I sometimes wish I wasn't so in love with a city in Wisconsin - or, how, sooner or later everything can go wrong - or, if only I knew how to make a decent shit sandwich - or, Putin, is that you?

Tell me friends, why is it that American students study abroad to cut themselves loose? Because the legal drinking age is 18, and even before these Spanish kids reach that age, you'd be hard pressed to find a day that they're not drinking forties and liquor in the streets and parks here? Perhaps. Because all the puritans left Europe for America and after three hundred and fifty years the cultural differences caused by this exodus are palpable? Maybe. Because the cops don't really seem too interested in stopping anything they don't absolutely have to? Possibly. Because the Catholics seem to be huge fans of excess and their pagan roots? I answer my question with another question, who knows?

But I know this much is true, I feel freer here in Spain and maybe it's just because I can hardly speak the language. Maybe it's because I have few ties to, no vested interest in and I don't know all the BS that's going on as I can barely understand the past tense in Spanish - which makes reading a paper a labor of love - but maybe there's something else going on. There's a complacency in America and there's a complacency here but I posit that they are of a different breed. If you want to talk freedom I say why not start by talking about puritanism and prohibition? (Key moments in American History.) Why is it the law for in so many American states for bars to close at 2 am and why is the drinking age 21? How come you can vote at 18, kill and die for your country at 18, legally smoke tobacco at 18, go to jail for life by 16, but you can't drink until you're 21 or rent a car until you're 25? I'm not saying that freedom is just about alcohol consumption, tobacco, murder, and vehicle rental, but I am trying to make a point about freedom. So far as vice, and possibly vehicle rental, is concerned it's hard not to make the claim that the roots of our policies have some relationship to our Puritan ancestry.

And what of religious freedom? So long as you're a conservative, protestant you're free to believe whatever you want. After much tribulation we have also (at least partially) come to accept catholics and jews, and maybe someday we'll find a place in our hearts for Muslims too. I mean, we talk about the oppression of women in Islam like it's so radically different, but women have only been allowed to vote in the US of A for less than the last hundred years (and ask a Muslim woman how she feels about western women and you'll get a pretty interesting counter-point; and let's not talk about racism and the voting bloc), and if we're talking about the prohibition of alcohol there's plenty of ammo in the Qur'an. What of freedom from religion? Is that a constitutional right? Ultimately, what was the purpose of separation of church and state? Was it solely to prevent creeping theocracy, or was there maybe more to it? Or less? Nobody talks about it, but at least one of the founding father's of the United States felt that the country couldn't function without a bible based morality, at least one other was regularly attacked for his faith, or lack thereof, in his day as well as mine. (And then, of course, there was this guy.)

So, land of the free, home of the brave, tell me about your freedom because now that I've left I fail to see it. In Wisconsin, the new Governor is proposing to use the national guard to quell unrest and dissent to his proposals while the state erupts into protest over his budget and plans. Meanwhile, Egypt overthrows their dictator through massive protest - a (if not the) key to their victory (besides persistence)? The refusal of the military to attack the protestors. And yet, in Wisconsin, the actions of the democratically elected governor are being accurately reported with autocratic sounding words like "unilateral," "contemptuously dismissed" and "power grab." And my question becomes, where will the national guard stand, with or against the people? Interesting how the police and fire unions are exempt from this big union bust-up. With what force will they come with against the protests? (It's happened before) I see riot shields and fire hoses in a possible future that looks more like 1967 or 1984 than the change we're supposed to believe in. Were the citizens of thes United States, at her inception, more, less or as free as we are today?

But with all of that on the table, I must refer you to Citizen's United (though I'd prefer if you paid more attention to either of these accounts of the ruling than cuvfec.com's, except for the Keith Olbermann spot around 9 min. in) - and say what you will about cuvfec's orthodox story, show me how my boy Russ Feingold wasn't affected by the corporate money spent against him (and keep in mind the possibility of a tremendous difference between a corporation giving to who they want to, and who will benefit them, and to an honest collection of citizens pooling together to speak out against a candidate - and if you want my honest opinion, I'm AGAINST TV ads in general and especially when it comes to elections because nothing could be a greater waste of money) Feingold had been a bulwark against corporate power, so tell me that his lack of reelection is not related to the way he votes and the corporate money spent against him. 2010 was the most expensive midterm election ever, and this has nothing to do with corporations having the locks taken off the dam(n) against their spending? Just wait until 2012...

My point about Citizen's United is this: I don't have much money to give to a political campaign, and I assume this is pretty true for many, if not most, lower to middle class Americans, who make up the overwhelming majority of the country, but how much money does a corporation that makes a billion dollars in profits every year have to donate? Ask yourself what kind of favors that money can buy? Ask yourself how that money can affect "opinion" in our bodies of representatives when, if it doesn't go for you, it will go against you, depending on how you vote (re: Russ Feingold). And think of the votes that cash buys, if that decision has to do with what you want or what's better for the corporation, which way do you think that vote's going to go?

Now, let me bring this in from left field and let's talk about Abortion for a moment. We can argue about the morality of Abortion until we're blue in the face and ultimately, the conservative moralist will probably retain the moral high-ground and disagree, while the lefty murderer will still feel justified, and both self-righteous, but it's a law, it happened. It was a supreme court decision and honestly it's probably not going anywhere any time soon. Still, we expect our candidates to take a stand on it, perhaps some have even lost elections because of their stance on it (Kerry, 2004; Gore?), which by implications means others have won (Bush II, 2000 & 2004).

Abortion is old news, Citizens United is brand spankin' new. Abortion is a hot-button issue every election, but tell me, morality aside which one of these supreme court cases has more bearing on the actuality of our representative government? Just incase you're on the fence with this let me break it down for you, abortion rights doesn't swing how somebody votes on anything but Abortion rights, whereas Citizens United has the potential to determine not just election, but by proxy the votes cast on every issue brought up in our representative government - which in turn means WE don't have any say, dollars do. It's a zero sum game, if you vote the way your corporate sponsors want the money goes for your campaign, if you don't, it goes against you! Ultimately, it goes against the people - and on that note, the official, orthodox cuvfec.com story is a f'n joke and I don't mind saying so (though, the alternative they mention, media control is also fairly real - the difference is that media is a choice, nobody is making you watch TV, and there's plenty of alternative press).

That said, which one do you think we should be talking about as an election issue?

So now let's return, life in the states isn't as "free" as we think it is - don't buy the hype - though I'm certainly not saying it can't be. It just takes work. Hard, fearless work. Look at Civil Rights in the US, look to Women's suffrage, look to fledgling democracy in Tunisia and Egypt. And while you're there think about this too, think about the western world's inability to support democracy in Africa, and the corporate reality of the economics of arms sales (from WMD's sold to Saddam, to tear gas sold to the Egyptian police), and the economics of power. Who's really in control? The body politic or the corporate masters? We were warned about big Government by our founding fathers, but they had a really different view of Corporations than the McWorld we call modernity in the west.

We're supposed to protest. We're supposed to rebel. We're Americans and it's time to remember what that means because if we don't wake up and smell the BS we're being served we're going to find ourselves at best under the Ataturk that we apparently need, and at worst an American version of this guy, neither of which seem superior to the idealized American dream we all pay lip-service to while we blindly keep complacent time and fall into step in the open air prison our country has become.

"I hold it, that a little rebellion, now and then, is a good thing, and as necessary in the political world as storms in the physical." - Thomas Jefferson

"I believe that banking institutions are more dangerous to our liberties than standing armies. If the American people ever allow private banks to control the issue of their currency, first by inflation, then by deflation, the banks and corporations that will grow up around [the banks] will deprive the people of all property until their children wake-up homeless on the continent their fathers conquered. The issuing power should be taken from the banks and restored to the people, to whom it properly belongs." - Thomas Jefferson