[green_achers]

FoolYap, one of the best written things I've seen here.

[FoolYap]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('GASMON', 'A')merica built itself up from virtually nothing to greatness through bloody hard work and higher moral standards than most other countries.

[Ayoob]

I love this place. Just hung my American flag off the front porch a minute ago. It first flew over Mount Vernon on Independence Day, 2007.

[green_achers]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('Ayoob', 'I') love this place. Just hung my American flag off the front porch a minute ago. It first flew over Mount Vernon on Independence Day, 2007.

[outcast]

Before I left the US in 2005 I always felt Americans were too sure of themselves, to some degree many still are, but not as many as before. Instead what there is now is a major sense of insecurity, that has often been projected onto certain other countries.

[billbrasky2]

patriotism is the last refuge of scoundrels

[green_achers]

I guess this is a good place to put this:

http://www.commondreams.org/view/2009/07/06-8

Untold Truths About the American Revolution

by Howard Zinn

[snip]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('', 'N')obody ever knows exactly how many people die in wars, but it's likely that 25,000 to 50,000 people died in this one. So let's take the lower figure-25,000 people died out of a population of three million. That would be equivalent today to two and a half million people dying to get England off our backs.

You might consider that worth it, or you might not.

Canada is independent of England, isn't it? I think so. Not a bad society. Canadians have good health care. They have a lot of things we don't have. They didn't fight a bloody revolutionary war. Why do we assume that we had to fight a bloody revolutionary war to get rid of England?

[Nickel]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('GASMON', 'A')merica built itself up from virtually nothing to greatness through bloody hard work and higher moral standards than most other countries.

[Mike Morin]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('Nickel', '')$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('GASMON', 'A')merica built itself up from virtually nothing to greatness through bloody hard work and higher moral standards than most other countries.

[bodigami]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('green_achers', 'I') guess this is a good place to put this:

http://www.commondreams.org/view/2009/07/06-8

Untold Truths About the American Revolution

by Howard Zinn

[snip]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('', 'N')obody ever knows exactly how many people die in wars, but it's likely that 25,000 to 50,000 people died in this one. So let's take the lower figure-25,000 people died out of a population of three million. That would be equivalent today to two and a half million people dying to get England off our backs.

You might consider that worth it, or you might not.

Canada is independent of England, isn't it? I think so. Not a bad society. Canadians have good health care. They have a lot of things we don't have. They didn't fight a bloody revolutionary war. Why do we assume that we had to fight a bloody revolutionary war to get rid of England?

[timmac]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('pstarr', 'A')re you proud to be an American?

Why should I be? What have we done for the world, except to breed with the best of them all the way to overshoot. We continue to delude ourselves that we are special, just like ignorant humans have always done.

We have squandered the greatest last bountiful and beautiful place on the planet. We have covered our farmlands with suburban sprawl, stripped our prairies of soil, and stolen the clean flowing rivers.

We live in our ghettos and are deluded we are free. We sit mesmerized by bright shiny images and repeat claptrap about freedom, convenience, choice, excellence, family while we have none of these things. All American have is the freedom to talk about freedom. Talk is cheap.

Meanwhile we have sold off our communities to the highest bidders. We have no more civic life--the thing that makes for a warm, secure, friendly and dignified existence. Few have access to common lands, city centers, public spaces, open squares, water fronts, parks, meeting places (other than starbucks). No street life, chance meetings, gratifying encounters.

We are godless vain consumers. We buy things to make us feel real We jump on the latest craze (second home? twitter, nanoshmano, black wheels? Costa Rica, the surge, green shoots, use it up--throw it out.) but we produce less and less for our lives. We control the world because we can not control our own lives.

We have disconnected ourselves from nature and thus we have no appreciation of it and are destroying the beautiful places. I don't mean the fucking views--distant flat ocean surface/mountain peak. We destroyed the small intimate places where our souls used to live. Where are the free rivers, country lanes, small meadows, the forest glades, brooks, ponds, streams, marshes. All gone under plow and street.

We live crass, dirty, polluted, hectic lives in broken down towns and dilapidated cities. Except for new crass, cheap new shopping malls and vinyl sided houses the country is falling apart. Old concrete slabs, tired cinderblock strip malls, rusting bridges, potholed asphalt, broken power lines, cracked sidewalks, massage parlors, etc. etc. We rush on highways to avoid the blight and ignore the shame.

The only thing new and clean are our cars and the oil is running out.