America the Not So Bad Really If You Ignore Some Things

The first ammendment is my favorite ammendment. The right to protest the government, the right to free religion. These rock. Speaking of protests I went to a few in my life. Probably not on the scale that some of you have been to, but some protests none the less. I was lucky enough to have lived now and not during what we call the civil rights movement. We’re still fighting for the rights of people but it clearly isn’t the same.

When I went to protest on behalf of the gay and lesbian couples of our state and also of the country, I was not stopped. I did not have fire hoses turned on me or dogs set out at me. I didn’t face military or police men and women with batons or bean bag riffles or tear gas or worse. So I’m lucky to be able to speak my mind and to question the government.

if you look at Iran and what seems to be an election that has been mishandled, no scratch that, an election that was obviously fixed, and the violence that has come from it, we are far better off.

I’ve been following a person on twitter who call themselves PersianKiwi. The last few tweets this person sent, all came at the same time.

Allah you are the creator of all and all must return to you – allah akbar iran election sea of green.

Thank you peoples for supporting Sea Of Green please remember always the martyrs
Allah Akbar Allah Akbar Allah Akbar. Iran election.

We must go – Don’t know when we can get internet they took one of us. They will torture and get names. Now we must move fast. Iran Election.

Everybody is under arrest and can’t move Mousavi – Karroubi, even rumor Khatami is in House Gaurd. Iran Election. Iran Election.

They pull away the dead into trucks – like factory – no human can do this – we beg allah for save us. Iran election.

Lalezar Square is same as Baharestan – unbelievable – people murdered everywhere – iran election.

They catch people with mobile – so many killed today – so many injured. Allah Akbar – They take one of us – IranElection

In baharestan we saw militia with axe chopping people like meat – blood everywhere – like a butcher – allah akbar. Iranelection

— Go to twitter dot com backslash persiankiwi and read the rest. talk about them with people you know.  It makes me so sad to read. Sorry. But this is something that has been on my mind all week. I do not necessarily support the opposition or the seated president of Iran but I am for open, honest elections and believe the only way to freedom is to give your nation a chance to take it. Iran has obviously decided that they are uninterested in giving peace and freedom to their citizens and that is just awful.

The whole twitter feed from this person, or this group, is something terrible. It will break your heart. They have to hack through government filters to get to twitter, and facebook and youtube just so that they can talk about what is happening to them with the outside world. I am glad I do not have to live like this, but saddened that others do.

I was stuck on this all week and asked my friends and posted on facebook and twitter. I was struggling. Could this be all that the US has to offer? Instead of America the Great, should we call it, America the Almost Not So Bad Really, If You Just Ignore A Few Things? That doesn’t really work, does it?

I mean, yeah, we violated the international laws that we helped write by keeping an illegal prison, or several illegal prisons, to hold those we called enemy combatants even though they weren’t all our enemies, but at least we aren’t being killed by our government for speaking out against them. What bothered me though this week was coming up with more, something better, and my friend who we call Homeless J said something that really pushed me into a new direction.

Part of this comes from our freedom to say what we want, but it also comes from a cultural appreciation thing. We have rock and roll. We created music as a form of entertainment that goes beyond just folk songs and sitting around the camp fire. We, Americans, mostly the African Americans actually, created an entirely new form of art that has moved people all over the world and become the highest, most celebrated artform. That is pretty rad. I think, mostly, the strength of our entertainment industry comes from our nations large amount of wealth and lets face it, we’re pretty wealthy.

I mean, even when I was working I was only making minimum wage and trying to live on that is next to impossible. And even though we have such a large homeless population which the government needs to find a way to help and so many people are losing their money and houses and lives because they have no income and are losing their jobs, we are rich.

I typed this on a computer. I’m reading it off a cell phone. I own, or rather the bank owns, a car. And a lot of people complain about taxes but I like that we have emergency rooms that anybody, even people who aren’t citizens, can go to for help. Our healthcare system might blow but at least we have options. And we have paved roads and freeways, traffic lights. Nearly every American family owns multiple cars. And almost all of us spend more time and money on entertainment than we do on feeding ourselves. And that is good for me because I’m planning on making my money in the entertainment field.

And because we are so rich, we have indie art. Anybody can buy studio time, press an album and sell or give it away to friends and do it with out the major businesses being involved. I used to run a hip hop website which featured, exclusively, indie artists. I am a big fan of indie comics and movies that were made by people who would rather max out a credit limit and let fans download pirated copies of the film, than spend millions of dollars making something that has gone through hundreds of filters.

I’m poor, by America’s standards, though not homeless. I need to go to the dentist but can’t afford it. Even though I’m overweight, I sometimes have to borrow money from friends and family to eat. I need a lot, but I have more than people in third world countries have.

A friend of mine who went to Armenia once, to visit family, and came back telling me that a woman who lived in the building her aunt lived in had died because they have to use a thing that looks kind of like a hair curling iron to heat the water. They have to plug an electrical appliance into the wall and then put it in front of the cold water to warm it up.

I’ve never seen third world poverty up close and personal but I’ve seen pictures, and read books and heard people talk of what they have seen first hand and it honestly makes me happy to know that I, as poor as I am, am rich.

I’m rich enough to go to rock concerts, to buy comic books, to go to four day long conventions in San Diego even if I have to sleep in my car while down there. Thats pretty cool.

Sometimes, I think, our biggest failing as a nation is forgetting how rich we are. Because we forget, we over indulge and this can lead to financial devastation. And because we forget, we assume that all nations are as well off as we are. They aren’t. We’re pretty lucky to have institutionalized schools, even if they are often underfunded. I learned to read and write, I learned basic math and enough science. We’re pretty lucky to have a military that is there to protect us, even if they are currently being used to fight illegal wars. At least they aren’t fighting us. We’re pretty lucky to have a president who represents a minority group. We’re pretty lucky that the biggest controversies our current government are involved in are sex scandals and swatting flies and not weather or not an election is rigged.

It is hard to go from constantly criticizing something, to applauding it, but I took this task on because I wanted to remind myself that while there are many things that need to be fixed, there are some things that really are wonderful. I decided to speak to remind myself that there are nations out there which do not have all the luxuries and freedoms that we have, and that those are what makes this nation great. We may not do great things, not always, and we may not have the perfect form of democracy and yeah, our healthcare system is horrible, but we do have some pretty basic freedoms that others do not.Are we perfect? Nah. Not by a long shot. But we kinda rock, sometimes.  The first time I ever called myself a proud American was when Obama won. I recanted it the next morning when Prop 8 passed but really, I’m pretty proud. Not so proud that anybody who insults our nation is instantly vilified, heck most of the time I agree with them, but proud enough to stand up at church, a church that is a minority religion in this nation and around the world, and speak my mind freely. And I am able to. That is pretty cool.