Hypocracy

The Wonderful Hypocrisy of Being American:

American core values and how we practice them .

The United States is a special place. No, I'm not trying to be sarcastic. I have personally lived and worked all around the world in exotic cities ranging from Berlin and Budapest to Istanbul, Johannesburg and Dubai but I chose to return to The United States. There really is no other country quite like ours. That being said, no country is perfect and I believe it is through having the courage to acknowledge our imperfections that we become stronger both as a nation and as a people.

Ask most any American on the street and you will be told how much they love their country. They may be angry at their politicians or fear the certain governmental policies but they still love their country. Soldiers have fought & died for their country. Scientists have invented and improved virtually everything from frozen food, medications, terrifying weapons and even space ships. All for the advancement of their country. Well, for profit and the advancement of their country.

It was largely the emergence of The United States as a new world power at the conclusion of The Second World War that sparked a transformation in our society. We had emmerged the victor and our factories began turning out millions of shiny new cars, time saving appliances and thousands of goodies that we could pamper ourselves with. We quickly became a post war, consumer based society.

Sixty years later we are rival to none when it comes to the levels of consumption of virtually everything. We have become a society that demands both instant gratification and derive social status by gratuitous displays of wealth. We are on a runaway train of unsustainable consumption and the end of the line is drawing nearer by the minute.

We abhore the oppresion of women but not enough to reduce our dependence on Saudi oil.

We detest communism but apparently not enough to quit buying Chinese products.

We hate sweat shop labor but not enough to pay more for our clothing.

We despise the illegal immigrants that harvest our crops and build our homes but apparently not enough to do the work ourselves.

We claim to be a peace loving people yet we lead the world in the number of wars, invasions & attacks on foreign nations.

My point?

We rush to put Chinese made yellow ribbon bumper stickers on our cars to show that we, like our neighbors, support our troops. I wonder how many millions of dollars Wal-Mart has made selling such meaningless, patriotic symbolism. Is it not a form of war profitering or simply Capitalism hard at work?

Educate yourself. History is written by the victors and serves to rally the masses around the flag. Like a herd of ignorant sheep most of us munch on our grass and follow everyone else from pasture to pasture. We are comfortable and complacent as our little herd is slowly led to the slaughter house where we are still chewing our last mouthful of grass as the bolt is fired.

Mad Baby says "Don't be gettin yer panties in a knot."