It is time for the United States to be humble, before we are humiliated.
We have a long history of acting like an empire abroad, while somehow keeping the truth about what we are actually doing hidden under a veil of lies, stump speeches, and cleverly labeled initiatives. Take Reagan; the most beloved modern saint of the Republican party. He led the American sheep through the 1980’s by blowing sunshine up the collective national ass, all while propping up dictators and revolutionary armies around the world.
El Salvador is a perfect example. The Civil War which broke out in 1980, when the people of the country 
desperately tried to free themselves from an oppressive regime, was brutally put down by the Salvadorian Army, an army funded and trained by the United States. If the United States had not intervened by sending the necessary fuel and supplies, the peasants would have most likely been successful…but horses and rifles were no match for tanks and machine guns.
At least in that case we were not ‘directly’ involved, meaning that we personally were not the ones doing the shooting, but we may just as well have been. Now, think about the situation in Iraq; where we are there, stirring up the shit every day, year…after year…after year. What a disaster.
This brings me to a broader point, in regards to the current election cycle that we are currently in the midst of. On the Republican side, everyone is in a race to become the next Ronald Reagan. No thank you…for reasons stated above, and many, MANY others. On the Democratic side we have a clear choice between the establishment and change. Change is always a risky choice, but in this case…so is the establishment.
I had a very enlightening moment the other day. I work at a gym in Hollywood where all of the rich girls come and go. They’re very nice, mostly, and I love them to death, but something one of them said really took me back a step and made me realize, for the first time, the distinguishing lines that separate class in this country; something I had previously only thought about in theory.
I don’t have health insurance. I can’t afford it. I’m a struggling writer/artist/bohemian youth with lofty ideas and a dream trying to make it in the big city, one whose budget goes to rent and gasoline. Anyway, one of the girls comes in, talking about her precious little dog (who is adorable btw) and relates to me how she had to take the pup in because of projectile vomit and diarrhea. Poor thing. But then, she was talking about the bill that was to come, and how she wasn’t all that worried about it…because her dog has health insurance!
Excuse my French…but what the fuck?! That hit me pretty hard, and for the first time in my young life it allowed me to view America for what it really is at the beginning of 2008…a country where some people have so much that dogs can get health care, paid for by a big insurance company, and a human can’t.
I’m becoming exceptionally pragmatic as I grow into my mid-twenties. I’m the perfect age to be swept into the Obama fury that is sweeping the nation, and I absolutely understand the buzz. The establishment has not worked for America. It hasn’t worked for me, and I doubt it’s worked for you…unless you’re the CEO of a Fortune 500 Company, or someone making more than $100,000 a year. Screw it all! If this goes on much longer, it’s time to bring back the guillotine!
I love America. I want America to work again. I want it to care about its people more than it does about its bottom line. I want it to care about the way it conducts itself in the world more than it does about exerting it’s imperial power across the globe. I want America to be for the PEOPLE again, not the corporations. Until that changes, I will be marching, writing, and screaming at the top of my lungs for the powers that be to be taken down more than just a few notches.
Light a torch. I think it’s time to storm the castle!