America the brainwashed!

Prologue

This book would have never seen the light of day had it not been for the “reign” of the Bush administration. I started to feel a certain helplessness around the time we attacked Iraq, and that frustration had to come out somehow in order for me not to lose my sanity. Bush and his posse have magnified for me and for the rest of the world all that is wrong with America. All previous administration and all countries around the world have skeletons in their closets but all do good and bad in order to buffer the negatives. I will not highlight all the things I love about this place because this is not what this is about, rather I will sound the alarm about the things that need to quickly change before it is too late in my humble opinion. Some may ask why I choose to live here under the circumstances, the answer is simply that this is where I happen to be and I write critically about it because it is the country I know best. If I lived in Spain I’d write about Spain and so forth… As an ultra liberal, I do not see myself as an American or a Moroccan but rather a citizen of the world.

What happens when you tell a kid that he’s great or perhaps the greatest and the smartest? Well he most likely tends to act out his greatness but more importantly he subconsciously stops thinking that he needs to improve or do better in anything. He is technically already there lighting up the nights. That is somewhat what happened to me when I was younger and what has been perpetrated on the American public for the last sixty years or more, I’m not much of a historian so I’ll only use my limited knowledge of the recent past to illustrate my point. I was always told as a youngster that I was special and that everything that came out of my mouth was sweet as honey. I fully believed that premise back then and stretched that reality to its fullest especially in the classroom where I vividly remember thinking I did not have to listen to this guy by the blackboard because I did not need to. After all I was that special kid that knew everything. I also remember thinking that the teacher really had no idea whom he had in front of him, he or she did not appreciate this greatness that they were privileged to have in their midst. A chauffeur brought me to school, we had maids at home which does not mean much in third world and developing nations. Labor being almost free, any middle class or even lower middle class family would get itself a servant to help with daily chores around the house. We are not talking about ladies in black dresses with white aprons and the chauffeurs did not wear black suits and black hats I assure you. We did have a small plastic factory so I was the man, and my family had a bottomless pit of wealth (or so I thought). All of that turned out to be way off later but that is neither here or there for the moment.

 You may wonder what the correlation with you the American reader is. It is actually very simple, the way I see it, the day you’re born in this vast land of opportunity you are told that you are one. One of the lucky ones, lucky enough to have been born in the best/number one/most powerful/freest/greatest nation in the world.

The rest of the planet is then automatically painted with a broad brush of insignificance. We have America and the rest of the world and that’s how the unbelievable brainwashing begins.

 Just like anything else in life, if you repeat anything often enough, in this case decades on end, it becomes reality. It is so real in fact that it is almost impossible to erase. This reminds me of the images of  youngsters in Iran during the Iran Iraq war, convinced that blowing themselves up was the ideal thing to do because they’d end up in heaven. That was hard for us to comprehend back then but it is pretty much the same idea. It is impossible for the average native here to see past what he’s told both on the conscious and subconscious level especially if he’s never been or has never lived abroad. As they say, perception is reality and in America that means that we are the greatest and there is no arguing that point. America can do no wrong even if it goes to a sovereign nation picks up its leader and puts him in prison because we don’t like the way he conducts business in his own backyard.

 No, I’m not talking about Saddam Hussein, that’s another topic that we may get into later. I am talking about Manuel Noriega in Panama. You may jump out of seats already screaming that he was a bad guy and that he was encouraging drug trafficking etc. Once again this is a matter of our reality here and perspective that we’ve been forced to absorb over the years. By what right I ask you, do we pick up a president from his palace, judge him here and put him in prison? To put that in perspective for you, try for a moment to imagine that Nicaragua is much more powerful than the USA. Now imagine that the Nicaraguan government decides that our president had dealt arms to rebels and for that he needed to go to jail. They would then send their tanks and helicopters to Washington DC, blast loud speakers by the white house until Ronald Reagan came out with his hands up, then took him back to Nicaragua where he would be tried and imprisoned.

Wow! This sounds insane and outlandish does it not? If you said yes, I agree with you whole heartedly. This of course did actually happen in real life but simply the other way around. The preceding was merely a tiny example of American arrogance. 

The only reason we do not even mention it anymore is because it did not happen to us and because America has bullied the rest of the weak world for the last fifty years or more with total impunity.

 It’s funny I can hear it already coming from the majority of ignorant Americans… I’ll be getting lots of hate mail and even death threats if I’m lucky enough to be recognized and published. I can also hear that typical stupid line, “if you don’t like it, get the hell outta here”, all the talk show hosts will be screaming on their microphone to their base of brainwashed sheep, “I’ll buy you a one way ticket to anywhere blah, blah, blah…” Let me tell you that that is the problem itself in my opinion. The type of American I am referring to is so brainwashed that he cannot take a second to step back and ponder all angles of a criticism or opposing view.

We are simply much more comfortable with the sound bite and not the news here. We do not want to hear all aspects of a story, we simply want a headline that we can chew on and raise our ignorant voices about. You never hear a rocket scientist raise his voice, but you’ll hear all the human dummy shells raise their voices about anything, that is simple Mother Nature at work.

The point of all of this is not to disagree but rather to raise questions so that we can all discuss a new perspective. The American angle is only one and one cannot always be right or wrong. It is sad to me to see that America is down to only two voices screaming at each other and pulling in opposite directions the confused populace trying to make sense of it all. Both of these sides have a very limited vision of and for America and perhaps these two factions can only get away with saying what they think is going to be accepted.

 What politician in his right mind can speak the truth on certain topics such as our place in the world? Can one really say we are not number one and be  elected? I do not believe so. He’ll quickly be lynched for his daring

sacrilege. There are a few premises under which a politician can operate, he or she can play within those boundaries like a dog with an invisible fence collar, but can never stray. After September eleven all the congressmen in their right minds had to vote for the war on Iraq because after all somebody had to pay.

These congressmen did not have the guts to step back and find out what was actually happening. Any vote against this holy war would’ve been political suicide. How can you not support the soldiers etc?.. I always loved that one, nobody ever said a thing about the soldiers yet anybody that would complain was a traitor for not supporting the troops. What that means to me is that the guy that sent them to harm’s way is the one that cares about them and those

who are against sending them to the wrong country to possibly die are the bad guys. I could write a whole book about the Bush presidency but I believe that others are in a better place to do so much better than myself. Additionally I believe that after he’s out of office we will find all the dead rats causing a stench in the oval office.

I would much rather use up my energy in this book to sound the alarm to those Americans whose “zombification” by way of brainwash has not totally taken hold yet. I will not do the “Dunkin Donuts” or foreign business trick. What’s that you ask? Well, think about it, every time you walk into a diner owned by an Egyptian family or a Dunkin Donuts often owned by Indians, the first thing you see, you guessed it a series of cheap stickers of the

American flag plastered all over the place implying, “we are not terrorists” and we love America, “we are with you”.

I used to think that fear of retribution was only indigenous to underdeveloped countries, those where you had to have the picture of your leader in every household and business or else. Well the American brainwashing machine is much wiser and more powerful than that. Unlike the Iraqs of the world where you have to fear one guy, Saddam, here the machine has trained the masses to be watch dogs, so you better hail the flag if you know what’s best for you. Like Bush said, you’re either with us or against us! Most foreign business owners that fled their oppressive regimes to come to the land of the free, prefer not to battle anymore, it is easier to simply hang that damn flag than to fight those damn overly proud Americans.

As I said in those under developed countries, you’d hate one guy or one government and have to hang his picture in your business place, here you’d have to fight all the zombies if you do not see the flag the way they do. I know a lot of Americans that think like myself that a flag is only a logo for a country and not necessarily a source of pride.

 Some evoke past battles and blood shed for that flag and that, in a way is precisely what scares me about it. I strongly disagree with those who say that you have to stand behind the flag during war times, just remember the Nazis and their banner. If my country is in the wrong I will not support it or its flag, period end of story. What if we decided to invade Canada tomorrow, do we still have to support our leaders and our flag? No! As human beings we have got to stand for what is right and nothing else. What is righteous should take precedent over all else.

What can you say about a country that has so much potential yet is led by unscrupulous people that refuse to educate the masses about the Cosmos? Most Americans I speak to still believe that they’re the only ones to have freedom of speech. Let me tell you in case you did not know it; you do not have the freedom of speech or movement in this land and most European countries have a lot more liberties than we do. Of course I do not agree with the following statement but could you say in America that you support Alqeida for example. Without being a financial supporter of the organization you will still be investigated and most likely locked up like those guys in Guantanamo bay. All the government had to do is give them a label, “Enemy combatant”. That was enough to put them away without the right to council. We went to war against them and when we captured them we simply change their title from prisoners of war to “enemy combatants”. This small nuance gave us free reign to do what we wanted to do. Let us all remember that we are claiming to be this beacon of democracy around the world and that other nations are supposedly looking at us and taking notes. Is this really what we are trying to accomplish and show the world? How would an American lawyer meeting a prisoner of war be of harm to our national security? He would not be, we are simply doing what we accuse other tyrants of doing, namely putting people in jail for years and years without do process. Are we really better than everybody else?

At this stage of the game with our current leadership and that of our foreseeable future, maybe we will not be able to handle true freedom. Just like in Iraq and others, freedom takes time and we are still too young a country to be there.

Europe on the other hand has a long history of culture and war that got them to this point.

 How can we say we are a free society when the government tells you that if you smoked marijuana, you are a criminal and that you actually deserve to go to jail? In some states after three smokes you’re in for life. Once again some of you will jump off your seats screaming “liberal, kill liberal”. Just so you know we’re supposed to be seeking liberty and the pursuit of happiness and liberal comes from the word liberty (so strange). Now, getting back to the pot thing, that is once again a matter of perspective no more, no less. We’ve been told ever since we were born that drugs were bad, bad, bad, so what is it we learned? “Drugs are bad”! See how easy that was? On the other hand, alcohol causes a lot more problems including divorces, car accidents and more. That however, we can accept socially. I have never seen anybody smoke a joint and get unruly, but I can almost guarantee we’ve all had someone we respected make a fool of him or herself to the point we never wanted to see them again. Now this free country tells us we cannot do pot and will spend a bazillion Dollars overseas to combat its use. These Dollars could’ve been put to use for healthcare purposes, medical research and last but certainly not least, education. I am definitely not saying that getting high is better than not getting high. I am simply asking, how offensive is this so called crime and does the punishment fit? Drugs are like sex and as such you’ll never stop them for the simple reason that people like them and want to do them. No matter how much you tell a teenager or anybody else for that matter not to have sex because of its dangers, they will continue to do so, for a reason not very difficult to understand, sex feels good and we like it.

This conservative movement sweeping the country is very dangerous in my opinion as it goes against Mother Nature, human will and desire. Rather than admitting that this is a no win situation, they will continue to spend more of your money to put this breed of criminal in prison. I would love for you all to meet some of my criminal friends, I am sure that you’ll find them quite charming. They’ve infiltrated your neighborhoods, your cities and suburbs

as bankers, teachers and pastry makers and more so watch out.

We love to say that this is a free country but watch that tone change the minute you say to a conservative these four awful words, “gays in the military”. Right there and then we are done with the freedom thing. These damn gays are poisoning our children and our society and should not be allowed to wear the uniform. I would love for someone to explain to me how gays impede the good performance of the military and what their sexuality has to do with their job performance. I wish that for one moment I had a magic wand and could make some of these religious righteous people feel the gay thing inside. I would love for them to endure the feelings toward the same sex and see what they would do about it. Would they be able to just repress these evil feelings? Would they never succumb to temptation? Perhaps they would finally understand that gay folks were created by the same God that they believe in and that they’re not trying to have sex with their same sex partners to be cute or different but rather because that is what they were programmed with. Furthermore, who are we to tell them to change and that what they are doing is the work of the devil? If we believe in the almighty we realize how insignificant we are and as such we should not always speak for him as if we knew exactly what he wanted. Let God handle us all when we’re up there.

There are so many more harmless things that our free country does not allow and one that I do love is the fact that you may not take alcohol across state lines in many states. I am not sure whom that is supposed to protect but it is illegal nonetheless. You may not sell a car on a Sunday in many states including my cool state of Pennsylvania. If you are a willing, tax paying citizen and you wish to purchase an automobile from a law abiding dealer, you may not do business if it happens to be a Sunday because that is simply illegal. Once again I am not sure what the intent of this law is, but it is the law of the land in many states.

Any cigar smokers out there? I do not need to remind you that smoking a Cuban cigar is illegal and that the offense is punishable by jail time, because Cubans are our enemies. I have never had any problems with any of them but the government says they’re bad people, and that we even tried to invade them and kill their leader but it did not work out too well. Are we starting to see a picture develop here, maybe a pattern that tells us we are not as free as we’d like to believe. One more thing about Cuba, you may not go there because it is simply against the law to do so, of course you can always go through a different country to get there. Our government even limits the number of times Cuban-Americans can visit their families back home.

 I am not opposed to rules and regulations as they stem from previous conflicts and times that are likely different than ours today; we also needs rules to live within any social environment. The only thing I would like is to not be subjected to the phony speeches about how we are the beacon of freedom around the around and all that kind of chatter. I would much prefer for the government and the presidents to state it like it is, by saying we are an overall Christian conservative country with religion and God as the backbone of our structure. That, would be the truth and we’d all be dealing in reality. God is on our money and in every swearing ceremony, sermon and courthouse, yet we have to find a way to claim that we have a separation of Church and state. That is simply not true, we prefer the religious over the agnostic and elect conservative church going, married men to office in big percentages. As long as we elect such people, we are saying that that’s who we are, since we chose those folks to represent us and speak for us. I have no problems with religion myself as a devout Muslim (non terrorist), but I do believe that organized religion has been a problem throughout the centuries and should not be a part of government. The simple reason for this statement is that the minute you introduce religion, you are basically speaking of one man /woman or group’s interpretation of said text. There are so many versions of the bible alone with each faction believing theirs to be the one and only good one and nobody else therefore would ever find heaven if they do not believe as they do.

 Look at Saudi Arabia and alike, what they practice has nothing to do with Islam, but they choose to run their business according to their interpretation of “Shariaa”(Islamic law).

I fail as a Muslim to find in the Koran or in the prophet’s scriptures where they saw that a woman could not drive a car or even sit upfront in a vehicle,

when the prophet Mohamed’s own wife was a business woman and a merchant that helped fund his spreading of Islam itself. Others like the Taliban apparently found something in the Koran that I missed which says that if a woman makes a noise with her heels she must get her ass kicked because that causes sexual arousal to the poor men around her. As extreme as these regimes are, they are simply an illustration of where we could end up if we do not pay attention and start sliding back toward religion in the government.

We are human after all and humans tend to judge with their hearts not their brains and in any future conflict, a religious politician will have to vote for what his church, synagogue or mosque tells him and not necessarily what is right for his constituents. How does this link up to my original statements about freedom? Well religion is not exactly a free and liberal institution, in order to call yourself Muslim, Christian, Buddhist or Jewish, you have to perform certain rituals, believe certain things and more importantly not do or allow certain things. There in lies the problem!

What not to do is what this potential religious government will not allow you to do because it is simply a sin in the book.

Let us go back to my opinion of the average ignorant American citizen and what that ignorance stems from. I first started my theory by stating that if you thought you were the best, you therefore had no need to improve or do anything differently. I have to stand by that and add that the way I look at it, Americans as a group do not see the need to go outside the country. A typical answer I get is, “ I haven’t seen the bulk of this country yet why should I go outside?”. I’m afraid that that is a direct result of the brainwashing I was starting to speak of earlier. No matter how much you see of America it is still only America and you cannot gain an intelligent perspective on your own country if you ignore everything about the rest of the world. As they say here, you don’t know where you’re going if you don’t know where you are. One has to know their place in the global scheme of things. Unfortunately a great job was performed on the American public to make it firmly believe that the rest of the world was inconsequential.

Would you care for a few examples? Well, here they are: I was very shocked in 1987 when I first arrived to my uncle’s house in the suburbs of Philadelphia, I recall seeing a commercial that stated, “this beautiful American face deserves a beautiful American razor”… How insane is that? I remember being flabbergasted and thinking maybe it was simply my lack of grasp of the language but it was not! We hear these subliminal messages every minute of everyday in every medium from TV, to the radio and the internet, every survey states the following: such and such disease kills so many Americans every year, such and such product sells so many copies in America, it is never an accounting of the planet as I was accustomed to before I came here. For Americans all that matters is what happens in the neighborhood. I truly believe this to be absolutely tragic, they have created a powerful nation of one track mind robots that can only compute and appreciate their immediate surrounding.

I find as I travel around Europe and my native country of Morocco, that the people in those countries know more about what is happening here and how the government works better than the average American I speak to here. The typical guy here will talk to you about the recent headline with no depth and no historical perspective whereas overseas you’ll have an opinion with a full peripheral viewpoint that encapsulates many angles from the past until today. Why is this happening? Why don’t we know, why don’t we care? I think I may know why!

 Look around you and check out your local “action news” or better yet “eye witness news” as if all that they reported was what the people on the street actually witnessed and video-taped for our viewing pleasures. As a guy who is starving for intelligent information about the planet and all my fellow human beings, I can’t help but be disgusted at the brain numbing machinery in action doing its thing day in and day out. Your daily news is an accident on the turnpike and a neighborhood’s opinion on the rain storm expected this evening. You can’t tell me that the repetitive use of useless local activity parading as news would not be damaging to one’s brain.

You may say well how about the CNNs and Foxs of the world? Let’s talk about those for a minute, when was the last time you saw a report about Canada on CNN or MSNBC and Fox? We’re not asking about news from Tunisia or Mongolia, that would be way too much to ask.

We’re talking about our neighbor to the north and number one trading partner. These so called twenty four hour news networks once again do not follow news, they follow headlines from Tanya Harding to Scott Peterson. We actually have people that call themselves journalists that sit outside a courthouse waiting to report for months on end on a case that is of absolutely no use or importance to anybody’s existence. They pick a case out of thousands of daily crimes and elevate it to national importance and then spend millions of Dollars to report on it and tell us the latest (I love that one) on the situation inside a courthouse. Another thing they call news, is bringing us every damn speech by a president whether important or boringly similar to the previous one delivered the day before and the one before that. God forbid they should be behind the eight ball and not bring it to us live. Somebody else might and that network would end up being looked upon as not being on top of things.

 Let us not forget the all important celebrity news. Where would we be without knowing where they eat, who they’re dating and how they feel? There must not be any celebrities or important people in France, Portugal and China because they are never reported on. There a lot of important things happening even here but they do not make it because somebody decided so.

I’m not sure I am happy with myself leveling all these criticisms at a system within which I live, but I feel I would be just another sheep in the herd if I kept my opinion to myself, some things have to be said and this country has way too much potential and greatness to be let down the wrong path by a system that encourages and embraces ignorance. Instead of just saying Karim you can go to hell or get the hell outta here if you don’t like it, try to step back and off your high horse and think a little, you may agree with some things and if I helped open your eyes to even one item, well I am grateful for that.

Everybody knows that the more you know the better off you are, that’s why we go to school for years and years, some of us more than others.

We all seek knowledge in order to get to Mars and cure diseases, so how can not knowing about the rest of the world be better?

We often think that we are wealthier than the Europeans, therefore we are a more successful people. This entails that money is the criterion with which success id measured. Should it really be done that way? Are we a better nation because of the amount of cash we have or how strong our army is?

I’ve always enjoyed engaging my American friends on the subject as I hold an entirely different view on the matter. Most Americans only look at the subject from an angle of size. Size of their pocket books, size of their army, size of their bank accounts and perhaps the size of the country itself. I personally measure success mainly by the rate of happiness and peace of mind.

Peace of mind is fast evading us in this fast paced world we live in. We work harder to buy bigger houses and cars and more of the “stuff” we long to have. All the while Europeans are taking up to eight week vacations, two hour lunches and café time in order to enjoy a higher level of social bonding. They may have less cash but they also have less working hours and most certainly less debt and more savings. Let us not forget that debt is our way of life here. We have the biggest national debt of any country by far as our government charges up the credit cards we have unwittingly allowed them to use.

 If I may draw a comparison and a paradoxical question, who’s happier? A successful, overworked stock trader on Wall Street or a researcher in some forsaken land somewhere, studying wildlife? I don’t think you can compare the two, however this serves to highlight the difference between the European lifestyle and the American one. The wildlife researcher is certainly not driving a luxury car or wearing designer clothes but could he be happier to actually be making a difference? I believe so. Just because we make more and spend more, it does not mean that we are a greater people or more successful race. In the rush to claim our greatness we fail to remember that we have the biggest number of male and female inmates in the world and an incredible rate of criminality. We continue to believe that we are the best country in the world, despite the fact that we have no national healthcare for the hard working poor as we like to call them. How can we be the best with such a profile compounded with our weak education system?

If I may be cynical as I often tend to be, I feel as though when one would compute all the data stated above on an imaginary computer, the conclusion is inevitable; we are on a serious decline!

The data I refer to is the strong percentage of ignorant people, added to a heavy debt load, an inadequate education system and perhaps a future generation of children born out of wedlock as well among other things. What’s that he says? Is he turning conservative all of a sudden? Not exactly, I believe everybody should be free to do what they want to do, but I reserve the right not to agree with their actions. I fear for the future generations of Americans bred for the wrong reasons and with no hope for any sort of home stability. I see them already as they roam the streets with no particular aim after or even during school hours. What future awaits these kids as they enter the work force with an unstable home base and a weak education in their baggage?

The stigma has been removed here more so than in any other country I’ve visited. There is no shame in being or doing anything. You can be fat as fat can get, you can have several children with several women or men and nobody should criticize you. The issue is not that the law should prevent people from having kids out of wedlock, but it is rather an issue of a poor structure for the future of this nation. Unless this structure is promptly reinforced with better home fronts and school education, we are leaving our fate to an unfit generation and the structure is bound to collapse eventually. This is a grim scenario we have to contemplate for there are consequences to every action we take or don’t take. I don’t think that too many Americans can even fathom the thought of not being the super power of the world, such an idea is inconceivable but it can happen. It can easily happen if we do not change our ways fast. Greater empires have gone defunct in the past.

The mere issue of obesity can be devastating to our future for we cannot be a productive nation if we are not a healthy nation, thus all these issues are linked together. Healthcare, education, obesity and many more issues are the future of the country and should be dealt with as a package.

I like the saying, “no man’s an island” and yet America under president Bush Jr. seems to think that it does not matter what others think of us, until we need them that is. In my humble opinion we have to do the absolute opposite and at least give the illusion of friendship to all other countries until they give us a reason not to.

Because of this conflict in Iraq, America’s lost the trust and admiration of the rest of the world and we may soon find out the heavy price of such a loss. God forbid we should have a real threat looking down on us in the near future, who do we think is going to come to our rescue? We may have cried wolf one too many times with the first call to arms relating to the weapons of mass destruction then the link of Saddam to Al qeida. Since neither case was proven to be true I fear that all of America’s precious allies will be missing in action and gun shy the next time around. After all why should they risk stirring up terrorism in their own countries to help another terrorist regime legitimized by a fancier name.

That’s what most opponents of the attack on Iraq call Bush and his lynch mob of professional liars. I’m also not afraid to admit that I am of the same opinion. We called Oussama Bin Ladin a terrorist for sending his mob to a foreign country to kill innocent civilians that did absolutely nothing to him, under the banner of revenge. I think you can see it coming already, isn’t that exactly the same thing Bush and his crew did, word for word? We attacked a people that did us no harm and never killed or threatened us. You can kill me now for being unpatriotic but if we are to be honest with ourselves, Oussama in his twisted mind at least had reasons to attack a definite enemy. America is his enemy because of its support for regimes he deems anti Islam from Saudi Arabia to Egypt and Israel. No, I do not agree with Oussama and his crew of insane “brainwashed” (notice the link of danger) criminals, but I am showing hereby that at least he had a reason, however twisted that he truly believed in. George Bush on the other hand knew full well that Saddam had nothing to do with September the eleventh but he chose to lie and go ahead wasting hard earned money to get to the goals he had aspired to. Like the rest of the world I heard all the versions why he would have chosen to destroy Saddam at such a high cost, but I fail to fully believe that any of us really know. These actions simply defied reason.

Scarier yet to me is how this government found a following of stupid people to support his actions.

 Even now that a bi-partisan commission declared the non-existence of ties to Al Qeida and after we found no weapons, some still say he’s a good man, a good Christian that does what he says he’s going to do etc… None of these people asks about these reasons we went because they’ve been brainwashed and dry cleaned on the subject by the repetition of the subsequent story that we were in Iraq to free its people from Saddam the bad guy. Do you see again the power of the brainwashing I speak of?

Isn’t it also scary that out of all these bright people, two hundred and sixty million of them we couldn’t find but this guy. I hate to be cynical again but George W. Bush  is representative of the crowds out there. If we all had high IQs, I guarantee you he would not have been picked, we would have aspired to something better. Unfortunately there are too many dumb Americans that can relate to him and would vote not based on any important issue, like the billions wasted, the people killed for nothing or the lies put forth. No, these stupid people will vote based on issues that matter not in the least, namely gay marriage, gays in the military, abortion etc…

 It does not cross their minds that this president only says he’s religious but in fact he has never done anything deemed religious such as building an orphanage or a hospice for battered women or anything of the sort, all it is, is that somebody’s claimed that he is religious. I even heard a woman on CNN say that she would vote for him in part because he may restore prayer in school. Not only is that against the principal foundation of this country but also Bush himself never alluded to that intent. Simply because there is a hope in her heart that he would do such a thing, she’s voting for him. I don’t know about you all but the fact that the most powerful job in the world hinges on the vote of ignorant folks like this lady does scare me intensely.

Have you also ever wondered about the trivialization of death and war by the use of stupid cute names we attribute to different battles? Only in America would you hear such insulting stupidity relating to the destruction of human life and property. I am referring of course to names like operation “desert storm”, “desert fox”, and my favorite of all, announced by Donald Rumsfeld when American forces were about to drop the biggest bombs on Iraq: operation “Shock and awe”.

This actually upsets me so much that I have to stop writing for a while…

America and its leaders find it invigorating to give these fun, fancy names to battles where actual humans will be blown to pieces. It is the Hollywood syndrome of sorts where everything we do has to be bigger than life, American style. In the mean time we call others barbaric.

Is war a game because we are always assured a win? Did we also need to trivialize this attack further by putting our enemies on playing cards? Is it really smart to sell war criminals and tyrants on play cards and sell them at toy stores in order to immunize our young to the brutality of war and death itself?

I am reluctant to call that conflict a war because it was never two factions bickering and then deciding to enter battle to settle a score. It was an attack on a much weaker nation because we knew we were going to be victorious. To me that is the definition of cowardice. We basically pick on nations we know are inferior in might. We never attacked the Soviet Union, when it was the evil empire, because the consequences would’ve been disastrous for both camps. We did however attack Grenada and Libya. It is a shameful display of power, even now we hesitate to do anything about North Korea but won’t hesitate to threaten Syria.

Would we have gone to Iraq if we’d been of equal stature? I really think not. Do Americans even consider the preceding? No, they are content and satisfied thinking they are the greatest and mightiest and refuse to hold their leaders accountable for the peace of mind that they so long for and could easily obtain if we minded our business.

The word peace itself has been corrupted in this country and now can raise eyebrows and make you an outcast. A student was actually sent home for wearing a “peace T-shirt” during the invasion of Iraq. On the other hand you had the stupid masses putting stickers on their cars and pick-up trucks, reading stuff like “If Allah is merciful we are not” and alike. Another I saw read “kill them all, let Allah sort it out”. That was considered a patriotic move in the minds of such people, I personally think it is pitiful .

 One of my favorites after September the eleventh was actually on a billboard outside a business reading “Oussama, you can kiss my ass”. Is that American pride or American stupidity? I for one think the latter. The kiss my ass statement once again trivializes the seriousness of that tragedy.

 After any event we have two choices; one is to react and the other to think first and then react. Well America chose to use that momentum of sorrow and confusion to go achieve its ulterior goals. For the business with the billboard, I offer my sympathy for I felt the same pain on that day but I think the wiser think to do is to reflect on each of our lives and see how we can turn a tragedy into something good. Perhaps by looking inward we can find something we could do better or differently. America had that same chance to use that moment of international support to ponder what happened and what it should do so that it does not happen again. Instead it squandered the support and sympathy and went to war. We could have investigated to confirm the reasons why we were attacked and do something to solidify the right relationships. We do not always have to be right, we could learn from others that were victims of terrorism before us and did something about it. We also need to remember that we were not chosen at random but rather for specific reasons. The terrorists never attacked Iceland, Sweden or Mexico for the simple reason that those countries do not involve themselves in other nations’ issues forcefully.

America’s known forever that its blind support for Israel is at the root of a big chunk of the Islamic world’s disillusionment. I personally believe firmly that Israel and Palestine can and should live in peace side by side but I also

think that America’s position in that conflict actually exacerbates the problem. The mere perception that an American administration is working honestly on the situation helped bring calm to the region during the Clinton years. As long as we lend a deaf ear to the chaos, we will continue to suffer the consequences along with innocent Israelis and Palestinians. Israel is not always right and neither is Palestine. However we need a strong hand on the matter such as a dedicated U.N secretary or a future president in America that genuinely appreciates the stakes to their fullest. We could have brought instant relative tranquility to the region by offering economic opportunity to the Palestinian side for I believe a young man with a job, a mate and a future is a man that would denounce terrorism and would refuse to blow himself up.

All my heavy criticism of this nation does not take away from all the wonderful things and people it has to offer. I do believe that there are many  that share my views from within the country and even more so abroad.

For some odd reason the liberal, free thinking and open minded voices of America have been crushed and quieted under the threat of being called antipatriotic.

Even folks like Michael Moore could not go to the point of calling this president and his power hungry followers, terrorists for the attack on Iraq. He would’ve most likely been discredited all together and no studio would’ve distributed his movie. As far to the left as “Fahrenheit 911” was, I was surprised to see that most of my fellow Bush haters and liberals in general, thought the movie did not go far enough to discredit this president and his administration. Nothing was mentioned of all the tyrants that have been ruthlessly ruling in Africa in our lifetime and how none of those were ever dealt with. We hear it everyday now that we freed Iraq and its people from the prospects of further mass graves being dug and more women being raped, but the same is happening on a much greater scale all over Africa without a single American soldier being sent to help. It is not America’s job to intervene in every conflict that happens to pop up around the world, but we simply need it to be consistent. When it comes to foreign dictators we should have the world community condemn and call for action. As such most nations would send troops for a humanitarian goal. If the goal however is really not the suffering of the people as in the Iraqi case, then we are going to have more “Iraqs” to contend with in the future.

I have to share with you one of my pet peeves which I do believe has more meaning than just the obvious. Have you noticed lately that upon walking into any service oriented business, you may not use the complicated and deeply esoteric word “Hello”? That simply would boggle the mind of the zombified clerk and leave him or her in total bewilderment. Are you wondering what I mean? Just try it some time when you go to your local video store or coffee shop. All the clerks can handle is “Can I help you?”. We have trained our young workers not to think one iota, we tell them that when a human being walks through the door, the right thing to say is “can I help you?”, don’t think just say it, it’ll take care of business.

I defy anyone to get a hello, how are you back, it is simply impossible, I tried repeatedly.  

You may say that I’m just exaggerating and that that does not even mean anything. I would strongly disagree! By building a work force of non thinking people we have removed the meaning of what it is to be human in these folks, they have lost the power to take and then react, they can only follow the white lines drawn by a management fully aware of this affliction. We have broken the human will in order to have an interchangeable and inexpensive work force where nobody really matters. I am concerned because of the magnitude of the problem and the consistence with which I am confronted with it all across the country. We need thinking people, not robots and yet we have to contend with these robots on a daily basis. None can make a decision if it was not specifically mentioned in the training manual.

As a businessman I often have to visit auto parts departments at car dealerships and service departments as well, much to my chagrin I often have to do half the clerk’s work in order to get the job done. A service department representative would only quote what is on his screen, should you ask for a variation of what he’s staring at, you are in a whole world of confusion for that is not exactly what he is supposed to do.

This concerns me because this who’s going to be in charge of the future of the nation. And so I ask you, are we in good hands for the future and are they?

One more thing about my personal story and its correlation with America’s future: I never made it in school as a result of my arrogance and actually stopped at the eighth grade. I subsequently had very tough years before I was blessed with a decent sense of business that saved me from abject poverty.

In closing on this subject, there was hope for me once I got my act together but there was none when I thought too highly of myself. The same goes for this country, there’s hope to reach even greater heights if we stop thinking we’re the best and concentrate on actually being the best we can be.

Further instances of silliness.

Did you get to watch some of the Olympics this summer? Do you already see where I am going with this? If you don’t I’ll tell you…

I happened to catch some of the action, some of the American action or inaction in some cases. There was more time spent on Americans that lost than on non-Americans that won. I saw long reports on Marion Jones and all her failed attempts to qualify for a medal than I saw on the Moroccan dude who won the unbelievable fifteen hundred and the five thousand meter races, which is a world first.

The Olympics are supposed to be about competition and achieving sport greatness, not about what we, only did, we should be informed about all of the winners and their struggles to get to where they are rather than focusing on our own people alone (whether they win or lose).

I am also offended by the number of magnetic bows displayed on all the cars driving around today. They come in all colors with various captions designed to appeal to every single weakness one may have. If it is not the proverbial and silly “God Bless America” which is too general for some, you may find the softer hearted (in pink) “God bless our troops”. This may mean “to hell” with allied troops we spoke so highly of, during the 2004 campaign or simply that we’d rather let their own countrymen pray for their safety.

I have to admit that my personal favorite happens to be “Freedom isn’t free”.

That has to be the most brilliant brainwashing in three words that could’ve ever been put together. It is telling us that if we do not start wars against countries like Iraq we would simply lose our freedom. I find this to be really offensive because not only are we killing young American soldiers for no reason but we also are lying to them about why they are there. This message from the right has been very successful and nobody can contest it. They have lead the masses to believe via constant bombardment of propaganda, that we are genuinely fighting for our freedom, that we are engaging the enemy that was after us and our lifestyle, in Iraq. If anybody today still believes that Iraq was either a threat or even a source of concern to our government, then there is little that can be done to salvage the future of this nation.

This nation will inevitably believe anything that is put before it, as long as it is done repetitively enough and with a strong cloud of fear blended in.

These tokens of patriotism (bows) seem to give the public a sense of contribution and perhaps closure. One feels he has done his part by purchasing this symbol of support for the troops, as if the young men and women deprived of all the necessities they had grown accustomed to, were getting any relief from these magnets. These kids have been without privacy, sex, entertainment etc for over a year in many cases and we dare think we are helping them or rather supporting by putting a magnet on the trunk of our SUV that in some way got us in this in the first place.

I may sound extreme to many but I wish to remind all that every single time Bush travels abroad, my sentiments are echoed by the vast public in much more fervent ways and terminologies. Let us also not forget that there is a major yet suppressed movement within the United States that aims to sound the alarm concerning the direction we seem to be headed, namely the fact that we are entirely being manipulated and controlled by big influential corporations and of course the almighty religious righteous (right).

I was very pleasantly surprised when volunteering for the Kerry camp, to find that I was actually one of the mild voices of opposition to the current government and the path it is taking us. I fully believed that I was the voice of decent to be reckoned with until I stepped into this liberal pool of youth and seniority fervor. Volunteers of all sizes, ages and colors were venting out their hatred, I would venture to say, for Bush and his crew of criminals disguised as good doers for the benefit of humanity. My fellow elves were  screaming out there anger and frustration at the fact that they were losing control of the America they had grown to love. Many stated how ashamed they were to even say that they were in fact Americans. Some explained how they covered the outside leaves of their passports when traveling abroad so not to be uncovered as the evil ones. The typical American maybe cursing me and the people mentioned here, we may be called traitors and more but that is really not important. What matters here is that we have to recognize the split of this nation in order to do something about it. We have two American societies here, those who believe in a global world and those who believe in American supremacy.

The latter scares me deeply for nothing will ever enter their brains, except for America is the greatest and abroad is a bunch of inferior people that simply don’t get it.

Written by Karim Kadiri

karim@naturalselling.biz

I welcome anyone’s views…