* * *
But enough of my woes. What about the question surrounding
what is probably the biggest non-medical issue in world news at the moment: Who
is going to cure America?
Not Trump, certainly. I note from this evening’s news that
he’s off on one of his usual childish, reactionary, bellicose rants at the
moment which will fail to ease the current problem and might well make matters
worse. Trump just doesn’t get it.
Because let’s face it, there’s a sickness in American
society which goes beyond racism and the death of one man. It’s evident for all
to see. It has been for a long time. The death of George Floyd was the spark which
lit the powder keg, but I would suggest with more than a tentative degree of
confidence that if racism were to be magically removed from the American
consciousness, the powder keg would still be ready and waiting.
You sense an aura of tension in so many things which come
out of America.
I remember the Dalai Lama saying after a visit he made there a few years ago
that the air was suffused with fear. Fear of what? Fear of violence? Fear of
losing your job because the innately conservative, free-market-obsessed
Establishment doesn’t believe in safety nets? Fear of insipient invasion by
foreigners (in the biggest racial melting pot on earth)? Fear of failure in a
country in which success is almost entirely measured by wealth? Are there more
things to fear? Probably.
And what about Chauvin? He must be tried for murder and
consigned to life in prison or the electric chair or whatever passes for retribution
in the state of Minnesota.
Fine, do that, but it won’t have any effect on the sickness. Chauvin isn’t just
a bad guy; there are bad guys everywhere. Chauvin is one of the fundamental
faces of America
which we’ve been seeing ever since movies were invented. A bunch of people take
to the streets to protest about a black man being killed by a white cop, and
another guy drives a truck at them. This is America. There are plenty more
Chauvins where Chauvin came from.
Meanwhile, politicians and celebrities come out to paper
over the cracks with their array of big shiny teeth, and their waving of the
flag, and their unquestioned insistence that patriotism is everything (not
wealth?) Children recite the Oath of Allegiance every day and are assured that America is the
greatest country on earth. America
– and I really don’t want to say this but I have to – is anything but the
greatest country on earth. It seems to me that America is insecure and divided down
to its very roots, and all the flag waving and oaths and patriotic fervour
amounts to nothing more than trying to hold together an illusion made with sand but
no cement.
So who will provide that cement? I don’t see anybody at
present. Who will make America
the greatest country on earth just because America has the potential to be
great, not because it’s the wealthiest? Wealth has, after all, been the
power base on which American imperialist aspirations have always been built.
And so on and so forth ad nauseum...
OK, OK, I’ve rambled enough, so let me say what I’ve said
before on this blog: Some of the finest, most intelligent, most considerate,
most erudite, most thoughtful, most genuinely decent people I’ve ever known
have been American. Some of them might be angry with me for saying all this; some
of them might even agree with me. But when, oh when, is America going
to stand together as a homogeneous nation of people and start listening to them?
No comments:
Post a Comment