O America – who are you?

So full of confidence yet so thin. An apparition looming large, yet insubstantial of soul.

Has the intoxicating arrogance of adolescence made you blind to what you do not know…. but could learn?

O America, are you so insensate to the responses we are getting from those whose knowledge and ancient cultures we ridicule and defile?

Do you not see what others beyond our shores see?

Our leaders crass, buffed with testosterone, strut the world-stage like men-children intoxicated with newfound powers…. and sophisticated lethal toys.

Do you not see the predatory power of pure aggression in the bully we now incarnate?

***

O America, ignorant of our own ignorance, provincial in our mis-estimation of ancient cultures steeped in aeons of erudition: wisdom, mathematics, astronomy, music, poetry, art, transcontinental trade, and yes, war.

O America, are we really so short-sighted that we misjudge such cultures by fanatical regimes that rise and fall in a mere blink of time. Like those of the past eight decades? 

In destroying them and the artifacts of ancient civilizations, what do we intend to replace them with?

Puppet governments? Macdonalds? Faceless generic chains outpricing local artisanship.

O America, what right do we have, unprovoked, to destroy civilizations, erasing innocent lives yet to be lived?

With what will we replace the irreplaceable – those ancient sites, graceful mosques, resplendent palaces, treasures of the world, whose hoary walls preserve the secrets of loving craftsmanship?

Will our glitzy hotels, our shimmering corporate towers, be the offerings we make in the ruins of architecture inspired by spirit and connected to Earth?

What artifacts of the soul we do possess?

And do we even recognise such artefacts in civilizations that have outlived ours by millennia?

***

O America, where is the wisdom of our early thinkers? Voices such as Henry David Thoreau, Margaret Fuller, Ralph Waldo Emerson, Elizabeth Cady Stanton, Sojourner Truth, Frederick Douglass, John Dewey, etc? Visionaries, thinkers, activists, educationalists, who helped guide and enrich the American soul as it transitioned from the Puritan mindset to create a new society.

O America, where are the statesman, whose vision designed the intricate architecture to sustain and protect a fledgling people’s democracy?

Whose institutions reflected an understanding of the human proclivity for power, and the corruption this can foster.

O America, are we blind to the forces eating away at the core of such institutions bequeathed by our ancestors? Why allow our politicians to openly cannibalise the protections these were intended to provide? 

O America, how long will we tolerate abuse of privilege and responsibility? Political position now bought by the highest bidder, the richest PACS.

How long will we indulge those seeking power and advantage at the expense of the people and planet?

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Our ancestors, the far-flung children of the European Enlightenment, were bearers of the inspiration and ingenuity released through the rupture that occurred between science and theology. 

But, America, was not this knowledge of our forefathers the legacy of a far older European culture? A culture borne of centuries of theological and philosophical debate, political experience hard won over centuries.

Did we lack the seasoned roots of older cultures, for new thinking to truly land and develop its own roots?

O America, are we paying the price of our near erasure of the Indigenous wisdom we encountered on our arrival in this new “green and pleasant land”, we call our home?

Through Puritan eyes, we simply saw a ‘savage’ and ‘superstitious’ people, unworthy of receiving human respect and dignity by a ‘superior’ white Christian culture.

A belief most egregiously played out over centuries on our plantations.

 O America, are we, in our state of fulminating ignorance, replaying these dark chapters of our past?

For is it not true, America, that today our wars are fought like video games where the thrill of a ‘distant kill’ can be replayed for public entertainment in social media, clips pulsating to the beat of AC/DC’s Thunderhead?

When did we become so immune to the lessons of our own past?

When did we become so shallow, so callow, so inhumane? 

***   

O America, you beckoned us all to your shores with your promise of freedom, individual agency, self-actualization and equality.

With decades of hard-won reform, you became a mecca. Free of the constraints of religion, social and economic class. Stifling undercurrents of European and British culture.

Long before your streets became militarized, you provided a sanctuary, a welcome refuge for those fleeing war and persecution.

Despite your imperfections, you offered opportunity and fresh beginnings.                                              

O America, where are our beat poets, today? Those who spoke to our souls across hemispheres as we transitioned from the shadow of war into post-modernity.

Voices who exposed our hypocrisies and kept us honest.

O America, where are our writers, our philosophers, musicians, artists, once both the conscience and vision–holders of our society?

Who will occupy the silent seats of our late-night comedians? Modern-day bards, our political commentators. Now cancelled. Like so many academics and activists in our ‘free’, but rapidly conformative, society.

***

O America, in our isolation, have we lost our moral compass in our enthusiasm to pursue the new….and to become rich?

O America, has the spirit and courage to venture beyond the known, to strike out alone, endemic to our pioneer self, shrunk to a deformed version of ‘neo’-libertarianism?

An ideology now deprived of the human and civic sensibilities enshrined in our foundations: Liberty, Equality Fraternity.

In other words, dear America, when did our cherished libertarianism become allergic to the social commons? To all notions of civic care and responsibility to a point where any such gesture is branded “communism!”.

O America, who have we become?

Yes, we are the richest, most powerful, innovative, and some would say primitive of privileged nations. Primitive in our unapologetic, gleeful relishing of power.

 Power driven by zero sum instincts that disregard human life and all artifacts of meaning.

O America, what are our artifacts? A bloated industrial arms complex? An out-of-control tech industry. Bereft of precautionary principle?

When did the ideology of transactionalism, optimisation, efficiency, control, and profit-at-any-cost, supplant wise governance, international collaboration, investment in our nation’s infrastructure, in human development: education, art, philosophy, and today even science?

When did power politics, displays of violent aggression and predatory behaviour, supplant dignity, diplomacy, and dialogue?

O America, have we shed completely the responsibility obligatory within power?

***

For those of us reluctant to see the mirage of America today, a reality check.

What does it mean when our Commander-in-Chief says we will “take out” a country’s largest oil depot “for fun”?

What does it mean when the Minister for War cites “fun” as the motivation for torpedoing an unarmed enemy navy vessel 2000 miles from the terrain of battle. The death toll – 104 sailors.

What does it mean when that same Minister of War, when asked about the bombing of a girls’ school on the first day of an unannounced war, resulting in 170 deaths, replies that this would “save them from having to wear burkas, from having to grow up in a barbaric culture”.

When, O America, will we be ready to face the depth of ignorance, criminality, and moral decay, we have enabled both within and without?

When will we bring to heel the oligarchic renegades who have captured our government, and pilfer our nation’s wealth?

How long will we indulge the narcissistic child-man, wanna-be-world-emperor?

O America, when will we say No?

When, as a nation, will we reclaim the threads of spiritual, social, and political conscience that once coursed through our young body?

When will we begin to rectify and rebuild what risks becoming an empty shell? One that the world is already preparing to pivot away from.

When will we realise no one person or nation is an island in this world – no matter how big the island?

Let’s wipe away our tears and create a different destiny. For we can be so much more.

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