Jingoism vs. Sanctimony

[kungfuwaynewho]

On the one hand there are the people out there cheering in the streets and shouting "USA!"  On the other hand there are the self-righteous hand-wringers making sure we know how morally superior they are, and how disgusting and awful the rest of their countrymen are.

Lay off, all of you.

It's not America being gross, it's people.  Everyone does it.  At the heart of a lot of people is a little caveman jumping up and down over protecting his territory from his enemies, real or imagined.  Why doesn't everyone do this?  I don't know.  But pretending it's just boorish uncultured Americans who do things as despicable as celebrating someone's death is stupid.  There, I said it.  Stupid.

I guess my gripe for today is how sick I am of the anti-Americanism coming from Americans themselves.  Yeah, I get it, we're all a bunch of hick assholes - which just makes the other extreme even more reactionary and jingoistic, and it just goes back and forth ad infinitum, everyone yelling louder and louder about how they're the best because someone else is the worst.   And I don't even give a shit about bin Laden being dead; whoopdie fuckin' do.  Just as there's always going to be some loudmouth yelling about how awesome he is because he happens to be [insert race/gender/nationality/political affiliation/favorite TV show] as though that confers any awesomeness to him, and just how there's always going to be some pretentious shit who is just oh so much better than all those scum she has to live with, there's always going to be evil assholes looking for reasons to kill other people.  The world will go on, much as it has for the entirety of human history.

Comments

[kungfuwaynewho.livejournal.com]

Well this is the stereotype of Americans over here (overly patriotic, right wing, gun toting redneck), and some people like to use it for an instant feeling of superiority. As if there's no such thing as racism/jingoism/xenophobia in this country. WTF? (Okay, maybe it's less overt and melodramatic, at least right now. But it festers under the surface and that can be even worse. We've got absolutely no excuse to feel superior.)

That's the thing - I think a lot of this attitude, both overseas and here, is all based on a stereotype. Yes, there are overly patriotic right wing gun toting rednecks out there; I live in Kansas. I know a lot. And even out of that group of people most of them are decent, hard-working, and aren't racist assholes. And I think that's part of the reason why I'm oversensitive to this kind of thing, because I live in a part of the country that is so stereotyped, in such a mean way, and that's not what people are like here at all. Are there racists? Of course - probably just as many as there are anywhere else.

Absolutely not OT - I always love hearing someone else's perspective!