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

[rivendellrose.livejournal.com]

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.

Of course it's not just Americans. That's the whole reason we're in this situation. Any time somebody does something stupid on the world scene, it's "(WHOLE GROUP OF PEOPLE) are stupid evil horrible people!" rather than "That one guy did a bad thing!"

The whole thing is just stupid and I wish it would all go away - the fussing and cheering and the moaning and whining. For god's sake, we've been doing this for ten years. Stupid me, I thought maybe we'd finally heard the end of it. Obviously this was just the beginning of another orgy of annoying media-insanity.

The world will go on, much as it has for the entirety of human history.

That's my favorite thing about history. Sometimes it's really nice to look back a few hundred years or more, just to reassure myself that people were just as convinced then as they are now that the world is horrible and poised on the brink of obvious disaster. A little bit of perspective is a wonderful thing.

[hollywobbles.livejournal.com]

Um, this. All of it. I know I already mentioned this in my response on pftt, but I basically spent the entire day being sick of everyone I came into contact with online. I feel like the entire purpose of facebook and twitter in particular has become a big one-upmanship game of trying to prove you've got the cooler perspective on every situation and a snarkier way of phrasing it, and I would be so tempted to throw in the towel on all of it if I had more than my boss and my cats to interact with in rl on a day to day basis.

[mac-beth13.livejournal.com]

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.
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.

Right on! Thank you for saying what has been getting to me all day and phrasing it so well.

I've had a movie quote in my head all day from 'The American President' -Sydney Ellen Wade: "How do you have patience for people who claim they love America, but clearly can't stand Americans?" I'm with Miss Wade, I've lost my patience with all of them, being American means expressing one's opinions, not oppression and the forcing of one's opinions upon another. They beleive differently than you? BFD, get over yourself. Move on, STFU, today IDGARA. In a few days will it really matter who shouted their opinion the loudest?

And...sorry to rant on your LJ, but yeah...sorry. :P

[indigoviolet.livejournal.com]

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.

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.)

The thing is, some people will bitch about the UK in one breath, but as soon as the conversation turns to bashing America they'll get all patriotic and start acting as if we're some kind of sparkling utopian fairyland. (There was a LOT of this over the healthcare debate.)

Sorry for being a bit O/T, but obviously I can't completely understand how this feels from your perspective xx