Blog Post #44: Americans Who Are We?
As a child growing up in East Tennessee, I was proud of our country and proud to call myself an American. I grew up admiring Americans like Davy Crockett, Daniel Boone, and, more recently, Al Gore Senior and Junior. As an adult, I’ve seen a lot. We have much to be proud of and much to be ashamed of as a people. To name a few on both sides of the card, our treatment of native peoples, Vietnam, and on the other side, our support of civil rights for all, and our support of democracies throughout the world.
But today I feel ashamed of our country. It appears that greed and what is easy are what we are becoming known for in the world.
Are we too disgusted and possibly depressed as a people to stand up again for what is right and to take on things that are hard? Doing what needs to be done today in our country will be difficult. Are we finally angry enough to do something about the way our country has abandoned its basic values? How many of us are mad as hell and not going to take it anymore? We should be angry and disgusted. Be angry! There is a lot of energy in anger. We should be using it to change things for the better. But we should vent some of the anger. Not at others, but with others who want to use their anger to change where we are and where we appear to be going as a country. Together, we can move our country back to doing things that we can be proud of. Not blowing up fishing boats in the Caribbean and pretending that we’re dealing with the crisis of drugs in our country. To deal with the epidemic of drug abuse, we as a people need to look at ourselves, not at others. We need to hold ourselves accountable for creating a culture that makes our country an ideal market for illegal drugs. The interdiction of drugs coming into this country, no matter how brutal or cruel the program, will not eliminate the problem.
So when we look back on this time, will we be proud of what we did? Or will we be ashamed of what we did or didn’t do?
Ron Breazeale PhD
Clinical Psychologist
