Is there any other country where everybody who lives there seems to hate it, or is it just the USA? Here's what I'm talking about. Apparently this week's Presidential election was won on "values" - meaning a whole bunch of people feel like this country's become a sinkhole of immorality, what with all the gay sex, abortion and Janet Jackson going around. These Family Values types are already on to their next campaign: getting advertisers to stop supporting Desperate Housewives because it portrays housewifery and unfulfilling and amoral. How offensive to suggest that spending your day sweeping floors and polishing furniture while waiting for your screaming kids to come home and mess everything up again could start to seem like a life of Sisyphean bleakness? It's indefensible, of course, but I feel honor bound to try to defend it anyway, so here goes:
Teri Hatcher is really hot.
Moving on, these people don't just hate Hollywood (our biggest export these days) but privacy rights, religious freedom, debate and dissent, just about every principal on which this country was founded. Questioning this agenda is an "attack" and shows a "contempt" for their "moral values." In other words, they hate America.
Meanwhile, in the America I live in, obscenity-laden denunciations of slack-jawed yokels and paranoid warnings about the coming Dominionist theocracy have become the norm, and the talk of the day is about moving to Canada. They just can't stand the thought of living in a country that would vote this way. In other words, they hate America.
Well I like this dumbass fucking country. I like the New York Subway and pizza and the Delta Blues. I like stupid big screen movies about zombies and aliens and giant robots. I like hot dogs and the Chicago Cubs. I like microbrew beer. I like New Orleans and Hawaii and Highway 1. I like the ridiculous rest stops in Wisconsin where they sell nothing but cheese and porn and have giant day glo colored plastic animals by the highway. I like Ohio hillbilly punk rock bands. I like paranoid hippies who only eat raw food, although I wish they would explore the wonders of personal hygiene. I like Harley Davidson motorcycles. I like living in a neighborhood where I wonder what the hell language old guys are speaking as they drink beer on the front stoop. I like working with old black ladies who tell me about Jesus. I like living in a nation of immigrants. I like the vernacular Victorian architecture that still defines the living spaces of small towns and city neighborhoods throughout the midwest.
I love this country. I even love my corrupt infernal Chicago. But I wish more people would spend their time trying to make it better rather than bitching about it. Maybe it's good we lost. I mean, everyone seems to want a savior, a big daddy to make everything better so they can go back to their lives. The thing is, you can't go back to your private life, not ever. Privatization is the problem with this country, not just economically but socially, morally, spiritually. Gated communities of the heart. It's not going to be a great country unless you make it one. Yeah, you, buddy. Do something.
No comments:
Post a Comment