And so here is what I don't miss about the States:
1. American Idol
2. American Idol commercials - Hearing about American Idol when I'm watching the morning news makes me want to shoot someone
3. Soccer moms and all they represent – pure evil
4. Suburbans, Excursions, Expeditions, etc - all the cars here are so tiny and it is great!
5. The North Dallas Tollway – giant cars, soccer moms, and cell phones…what’s not to love, I mean HATE?
6. Obese people on airplanes
7. Plastic Surgeried Plano/Dallas women
8. Kenny Chesney songs on the radio every 10 minutes
9. Wal-Mart - ok, I miss stores that buy sell everything cheaply and that are open very convenient hours with ample parking, but NOT Wal-Mart
10. People lecturing about their religion - God Bless...the language barrier!
And if you want to avoid the rant -- STOP READING! Otherwise, carry on...
11. Political BS and constant news about it (Tea Party, Obama, Senator in Play Girl, etc.) - Serbia experienced 100% inflation in 2000 and they thought this was pretty good considering the hyperinflation of the 1990's in which they experienced 10% inflation every day! Currently, inflation is around 7%. To paraphrase one of my co-workers "The current economic crisis in Serbia isn't perceived as being that bad by our consumers because during the 1990's it was much worse". Keep in mind unemployment is reported as being anywhere from 20-40% right now here. But in the 1990's, Serbia had hyperinflation, economic sanctions, bombings, war, and death. I think that as Americans, we can appreciate that when leaders do things we don't agree with, it is often the average person that suffers. So regardless of your point of view on the Balkan wars, the average person was the one that suffered the most during this time, whether you lived in Belgrade, Zagreb, Sarajevo, or Pristina or any of the villages in between.
This is something that we have not experienced as Americans. We have not had a ground war on our own soil since April 1865. Why do you think we emerged as a superpower after WWII? Because our factories stopped supporting the war and started making goods. But we didn't have to rebuild our infrastructure like Europe had to do. Our roads were not bombed, so we could begin to build interstates to connect our big country. Our cities were not bombed, so we could spend our money building up the suburbs. We were lucky and I hope that people appreciate it. But this "luck" also means that Americans are isolated and have lost perspective globally.
As I said, I'm proud to be an American, but because so many Americans never look outside of the borders (except negatively), never travel, and never experience other cultures, we don't see that in some areas of the world things are so much worse and in some areas so much better; that "your way" isn't the only way. My birthday twin and I used to jokingly say "things would be so much easier if everyone was like us" and "everyone else is weird except us". Of course we were just joking (or maybe had just dealt with a particularly difficult student), but it is easy to fall into that trap. Experiencing new things, good and bad, is a good way to realize that your way isn't the only way, even if it is the way you prefer.
On that note, here are 2 photos I snapped one day driving to work. It puts things in perspective. The economy might be bad and you might believe that the president is ruining the country. But our leaders aren't directly massacring US citizens and no one is bombing your city. This is from the 1999 bombing of Belgrade and Serbia that started on March 24 and lasted for 76 days.
Bottom picture is from http://farm4.static.flickr.com/3008/3380727641_114c48f76b.jpg
Hmmm, I’m a little at odds with your cheap China junk comment. I think the whole neoliberal scheme of supplying cheaper and cheaper material worthlessness into our lives has caused a lot of damage. Although I must agree that it is probably very nice to be without the first ten things on your list!
ReplyDeleteRegarding number eleven, those things are just a charade and theater of illusion to placate the people anyway. As for violence and warfare amongst/against the people, I think ours in the US is much more subtle. Instead of having loud causes for action and revolt, like the bombs and violence of the Balkan wars, we are stuck with a gradual slide into a corporate totalitarian state. It is slow, and ever encroaching, which is why people aren’t more apt to stand up and do something about it. The longer we wait the more traction we as average people lose in the fight against the power and money that is accruing in the hands of a small elite class of people that have no care whatsoever for the citizenry of this country, or any other country or people for that matter. In their twisted minds, we are all just seen as either consumers or as disposable workers in a machine that works for the sole purpose of accumulating their wealth.
Nice to see you are getting some perspective on the world and maybe seeing how other people live a bit simpler, without all the trappings of our U.S. glam, fab, in your face, ME, ME, ME, over the top society.