Hm, what a lovely combination of headlines...

[fickle]

Schwarzenagger vetoes gay marriage bills.

Oh, and there are still rumors circulating he's running for re-election and possibly later for President because obviously, the last actor we had for President just did such a great job.

Secondly, US image abroad has suffered.

Oh wow. Really? What with the hugest ever mass protests against one person and the fact that 58 percent in the BBC poll see Bush's re-election as a threat to world peace, I would have never guessed that America's actually unpopular now.

This isn't high school. It is not a case of being cool to be uncool. This is a case of a global community, of peer judgment and not of a bully stomping onto the playing field, stomping on the glasses of the geeks and insisting it's because they wreck grade curve so really, bullying them is okay!

Come on people. I lived in Europe. I remember how proud I felt to be able to tell people that I'm American. I remember daydreaming about living in America once I started college.

I don't even know when it was that I started realizing being American was a shameful thing; but I do know it had nothing to do with extra-marital blowjobs and quite a bit to do with someone's idea of diplomacy being to forget the soft words and rely on the big stick.

Comments

[sorshawolf.livejournal.com]

If he wasn't born in the US, he can't be president. I believe it's written that you have to be a native born citizen to run, and he was born in Austria.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/President_of_the_United_States#Requirements_to_hold_office

even though some people disagree with it. *shrug* It's not going to change anytime soon with our dear baka no kimi in office.

[harmonybunny114.livejournal.com]

I love your last line.

The whole topic made me think about when I was on the Greyhound bus on the way to or back from Illinois; there were two Americans sitting behind me, talking about the war. One was in the Army, and the other was a random girl he had met on the bus, and they were both bashing Bush and the war. My favourite part of what they were saying was when the girl said 'I sometimes think that other countries must think we're insane...I mean, really, what must they think', or something along those lines. Well yes. Quite.

[greyhawk.livejournal.com]

I kinda waited a few days to reply to this so I could mull it over a bit rather than respond in a knee-jerk reponse and come off sounding like a bafoon (which I do far too often IRL).

Being an American isn't a shameful thing. Never has been. Never will be. Any more than it would be to be Chinese, where the government FORCES abortions on people who have too many children, or to be from Turkey, where the government does things mentioned in prior posts of yours.

There are only two groups of people who need to be ashamed right now, I think: the US Government and those who still blindly insist that Bush is doing everything right. The rest of us can and SHOULD be ashamed of what they're doing, supposidly in our name.

But to be ashamed of being American? Bah. Never. If, for no other reason, because I come from a country which has had 231 years of perfectly peaceful changes of power, where I can say that I am pissed off at the government and damn glad Bush can't run again, where one of the big debates right now is if the 2008 race for president is going to be between Hillary Clinton and Condoleeza Rice...

The fact of the matter is that for all Bush's screw-ups, and ooooooh are there many, he's DONE in three years. And, next year are the mid-term elections for congress and Bush has almost ASSURED the Democrats will take back congress, meaning he won't be able to get anything done. And he's proven time and time again he won't use the bully-pulpit to make his case, so come next November, he is effectively powerless.

The Continental Congress wasn't a bunch of idiots. If anybody fucks up as badly as Bush did, all they will do is castrate themselves because that's the way things were designed. It really does make politics survival of the fittest where even the top of the political food chain isn't safe. And that is a thing of beauty.