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America The...?

By Mark Grueter

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The elusive Osama bin Laden hated America; our values, our institutions, our religions, our atheisms. Many Europeans and other citizens of the world hate America also. But American patriots assure all that this contempt stems from envy; America stands for freedom and justice and egalitarian values, say these America-lovers.

Domestic critics of American foreign policy are sometimes portrayed as “anti-American” - sympathizers with terrorists and dictators. But native critics from The Beastie Boys to Molly Ivins insist that they too “love” America; the critics of Bush’s war are the real patriots, says they. Even the most ostensibly radical critic of US power - Noam Chomsky - believes that America is still, after all, the best country in the world.

Personally, I hate America, and unlike the antiwar wimps, I’m not scared to admit it. Every semi-educated liberal can point out America’s blatant weaknesses: public education, gap between rich and poor, health care, “hubristic” foreign policy…you know the litany. Left out is how inept America is at the things it is alleged to be the best at - service and technology.

Earlier this year I learned that the U-haul Truck Company is not a legitimate business, assuming for the moment that any business is legitimate, which I take leave to doubt. “Uhaul” accepts reservations for trucks without any consideration as to whether or not any trucks will actually be available. I won’t go into all the tedious details, but when I called the day before to see if my truck was ready I was informed that my truck was already rented out a week earlier - rented out a week earlier by me. Now, despite a well-documented history of sleepwalking and blackouts, I was positive that I had done nothing of the sort. So, Uhaul screwed me over twice: they charged me for renting a truck, and then refused to provide me with one when I politely asked for it. “You’re ruining my life, you know that, right?” But they were unmoved by my pleas. If I were rich, I could have hired movers. But, of course, I am not.

Service in general blows in this country, partly because everyone working those shitty service jobs is bitter about the fact that they’re underpaid for the work they’re supposed to perform. Of course, if you have piles of money, none of this really matters because of “first” or “business” class alternatives. The lesson this country teaches is quite simple: Money and bullshit talk, fairness, principle and justice walk.

A pioneer in the development of technologies, America scarcely manages to follow through on any of its promising inventions. The technology exists to fuel automobiles without the necessity of gasoline - and instead fuel them with (say) hydrogen - so why aren’t these sources being used on a mass scale? Perhaps because they require commitment and vision beyond next Thursday? And whatever happened to hover-boards or phones installed with video equipment so that we could see who we’re talking to?

Brooklyn, New York (specifically Williamsburg) is no more advanced than Vladivostok, Russia; I know because I’ve lived in both cities. The first rule in both places is that nothing is reliable. Stores close arbitrarily and unpredictably. Various Mafia groups control varying neighborhoods. Major credit cards are almost never accepted, anywhere. The English language is sometimes spoken in both cities. With the exception of certain, fully-gentrified areas, localism and tribalism reign, provincial and backward attitudes dominate. Both reek extraordinarily of garbage. The biggest difference is that Brooklyn is much, much more expensive than Vladivostok; and, you can pound booze in the streets of Russia without being subject to 50-dollar fines.

My landlords in Williamsburg were some of the most sinister, stupid, corrupt and nastiest people I’ve ever encountered, anywhere in the world. They were an Italian family with no education, no morals and no intelligence to speak of. They robbed me of my security deposit, smart enough at the least to bet that I would not be able to afford legal action against them. If I ever become powerful I’ll hunt down these evil bastards; I’ll search every low-IQ hole within a twenty-mile radius.

So, those of us who supported “regime change” in Iraq, and favor the same in Iran and North Korea, should avoid loose talk of exporting western markets and culture to these regions, not because it is imperialistic (it isn’t), but because our systems are flawed to the point of almost being broken. Destroying monsters is all fine and good so long as we do not attempt to replace those monsters with the fiendish system that currently runs our own country.

Just another example: No value is placed in education for its own sake in this country. It always boils down to the lowest (and most idiotic) common denominator: well, what are you going to do with that? Sneers all around for those of us who study the arts. Where else in the world do private student loan amounts for college even compare to what American students borrow? Crude financial pressures bring out the worst in our characters and often push us into learning mindless, miserable trades in order to get by, instead of challenging our intellects and provoking our critical faculties.

Enron was not an exception to an otherwise decent system; those degenerates merely got caught. The American system is engineered to encourage the maximization of profits at all costs. I once worked for a small business guy who used to send people his stuff and bill them for it even after they specifically stated they didn’t want it. Degraded terms like ‘networking’, ‘people skills’, and ‘business culture’ mesh with the nauseating and debased influences of telemarketers, automated systems and spam. How many people have called a customer service line and waited for at least 30 minutes before speaking to a representative? These are things that now define America. This is what all of our debt is propping up.

In America, the depressing fact is that one really needs tons of money in order to live comfortably. Gore Vidal once wrote that it is impossible to be “free” in America unless you have money. It is not very difficult to have contempt for a nation where millions suffer every day because their leaders fail to understand priorities so fundamental that they are apparent to almost everybody but those leaders themselves. But I don’t expect any response, any time soon, from the group of people that has been apologizing for our much vaunted system, from one side or the other, all the way along - the American people.

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Mark Grueter lives in New York City, where he is pursuing his master's in Liberal Studies at the New School University's Graduate Faculty of Political and Social Science.  He can be contacted at [email protected].

© 2003 Me Three