From www.misanthropic-bitch.com
May. 23rd, 2002 03:34 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
thejunipertree"I finally saw the Daniel Pearl video that's going around, and it's obvious that someone got a pirated copy of Adobe Premiere for Ramadan. Imagine the propaganda they can produce once they discover all the transitions and filters available to them. We'll be goose-stepping to the sweet sounds of Amr Diab in no time.
Because of my article on the September 11 greedfest, I've received quite a few e-mails from foreigners thanking me for being one of the few "intelligent Americans." By this, I assume, they mean I'm not a blindly patriotic ninny with a tattered, forgotten American flag attached to my car's antenna. This part is true, but I've grown weary of the smug anti-Americanism. I'm a 23-year-old American female who is an expendable cog in the wheel. What would you like me to do?
If I have bills to pay, projects to complete and clothes to wash, how much time during the day should I, as a privileged American, be expected to spend on pondering the solutions to meaty international issues, such as global warming, that weigh heavily on the minds of even the most uneducated denizens of Pakistan?
Because, surely, Muslim terrorists will attack only American infidels and no one else in the Western World, so what can I, as a culturally ignorant American, do to make the life of an overeducated, underemployed Saudi Arabian male who has long suckled oil from the teat of his homeland easier and more comfortable?
I'd hate for, say, French engineers or German tourists to get caught in attacks strictly aimed at evil Americans, and I'd feel so guilty if, say, hundreds of Milanese were killed by nerve gas in their subway system because terrorists -- I mean, freedom fighters -- were trying to take out the American swine they followed from the airport. So, if there's anything I can tell Condoleeza Rice or Donald Rumsfield to get them to stop all of the war, poverty, racism, tribalism, etc. that
started only after the formation of the United States of America, let me know. After I finish my 8-5 shift, cook dinner, eat, pay my bills, and wash the imperialistic filth from my body, I'll get right on it.
You know, it's a lot easier to be critical and angry when you've got time to sit around and stew, which is why you see riots and demonstrations in poor communities, on college campuses, and in segregated European neighborhoods where immigrants from North African and Middle Eastern countries grow fat and revolutionary on the dole,
while in middle-class enclaves where the citizens work 50-hour weeks -- not so much.
It's why those spewing outrageously anti-American vitriol don't see how bizarre it is to condemn the collateral damage inflicted on Afghans in response to the actions of their leaders but rejoice in the collateral damage inflicted on Americans in response to the actions of their leaders. We get it: you don't like America. I know, it sucks to live in a country where you can't get a Slurpee and a bag of Hot Fries at 2 a.m., but don't take it out on us. We're happy little proles, and so
are you. Citizens of every nation are uninformed about the inner machinations of their own governments. Americans aren't special in that regard.
We're not privy to the closed door sessions that lead to secret operations to topple foreign governments. No one sticks leaflets under our windshield wipers announcing the Coup in Venezuela luau. The president doesn't invite us over for sticky buns and strategic missile planning. Colin Powell doesn't drop off surveys asking for every Americans' opinion on the government's Israeli policy. I hear from the
government only once a year, and that's to let me know that they need more money to fund programs with which I likely don't agree.
It's common knowledge that the American government does a lot of shady shit -- in this kooky world of everyone looking out for their own, who doesn't? -- but good luck trying to uncover and stop it if you're a mid-level stockbrocker who has a mortgage to pay and three brats to support or a dishwasher at a touristy restaurant sending your paltry wages back to your family in the Dominican Republic.
So, if you hate what the American government does, take it up with the American government. I'm too busy polishing my gun, eating at buffets and watching "Friends" to solve your country's petty problems."
-----------------------------
Couldn't have said it better.
Because of my article on the September 11 greedfest, I've received quite a few e-mails from foreigners thanking me for being one of the few "intelligent Americans." By this, I assume, they mean I'm not a blindly patriotic ninny with a tattered, forgotten American flag attached to my car's antenna. This part is true, but I've grown weary of the smug anti-Americanism. I'm a 23-year-old American female who is an expendable cog in the wheel. What would you like me to do?
If I have bills to pay, projects to complete and clothes to wash, how much time during the day should I, as a privileged American, be expected to spend on pondering the solutions to meaty international issues, such as global warming, that weigh heavily on the minds of even the most uneducated denizens of Pakistan?
Because, surely, Muslim terrorists will attack only American infidels and no one else in the Western World, so what can I, as a culturally ignorant American, do to make the life of an overeducated, underemployed Saudi Arabian male who has long suckled oil from the teat of his homeland easier and more comfortable?
I'd hate for, say, French engineers or German tourists to get caught in attacks strictly aimed at evil Americans, and I'd feel so guilty if, say, hundreds of Milanese were killed by nerve gas in their subway system because terrorists -- I mean, freedom fighters -- were trying to take out the American swine they followed from the airport. So, if there's anything I can tell Condoleeza Rice or Donald Rumsfield to get them to stop all of the war, poverty, racism, tribalism, etc. that
started only after the formation of the United States of America, let me know. After I finish my 8-5 shift, cook dinner, eat, pay my bills, and wash the imperialistic filth from my body, I'll get right on it.
You know, it's a lot easier to be critical and angry when you've got time to sit around and stew, which is why you see riots and demonstrations in poor communities, on college campuses, and in segregated European neighborhoods where immigrants from North African and Middle Eastern countries grow fat and revolutionary on the dole,
while in middle-class enclaves where the citizens work 50-hour weeks -- not so much.
It's why those spewing outrageously anti-American vitriol don't see how bizarre it is to condemn the collateral damage inflicted on Afghans in response to the actions of their leaders but rejoice in the collateral damage inflicted on Americans in response to the actions of their leaders. We get it: you don't like America. I know, it sucks to live in a country where you can't get a Slurpee and a bag of Hot Fries at 2 a.m., but don't take it out on us. We're happy little proles, and so
are you. Citizens of every nation are uninformed about the inner machinations of their own governments. Americans aren't special in that regard.
We're not privy to the closed door sessions that lead to secret operations to topple foreign governments. No one sticks leaflets under our windshield wipers announcing the Coup in Venezuela luau. The president doesn't invite us over for sticky buns and strategic missile planning. Colin Powell doesn't drop off surveys asking for every Americans' opinion on the government's Israeli policy. I hear from the
government only once a year, and that's to let me know that they need more money to fund programs with which I likely don't agree.
It's common knowledge that the American government does a lot of shady shit -- in this kooky world of everyone looking out for their own, who doesn't? -- but good luck trying to uncover and stop it if you're a mid-level stockbrocker who has a mortgage to pay and three brats to support or a dishwasher at a touristy restaurant sending your paltry wages back to your family in the Dominican Republic.
So, if you hate what the American government does, take it up with the American government. I'm too busy polishing my gun, eating at buffets and watching "Friends" to solve your country's petty problems."
-----------------------------
Couldn't have said it better.
![[identity profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/openid.png){kind=small}
(no subject)
Date: 2002-05-23 10:39 pm (UTC)/I/ don't eat at buffets, silly goose!
The Misanthropic Bitch does. ;)