September 25, 2009

• The Decline (and Perhaps Fall?) of the United States of America

  The Decline (and Perhaps Fall?) of the United States of America

  An essay by Michael F. Nyiri, poet, philosopher, fool

  Disclaimer: I don’t want to give the impression that I have any journalistic credibility at all. I studied both journalism and telecommunications back in high school and college, a long time ago. I even edited our high school newspaper for a year, instead of a semester, as was the practice, since we had a small staff that year. I have read the Los Angeles Times for over 30 years, and I’ve read many news magazines, journals, and online news feeds, including the two big ones, Reuters and AP. Sometimes I get my middle east news from Al Jareeza. I don’t watch television news anymore, after growing disgusted with the entertainment aspect and tendency to turn everything into a “show”, especially after 9/11/01. I will watch selected news clips online. I never watch Fox, preferring NBC or CNN. I read a lot in the blogosphere, both on Xanga and in general. I’m no expert, but I believe I’m informed enough to have opinions. The following is merely an observation. MFN/ppf

  
  I’m upset and distressed.

  Even though I always try to maintain a positive outlook for a hopeful future, and relish the good things in life, a few things have been grating on my mind lately as I read the news and try to digest the possible outcomes of some of the scenarios I see brewing. I like to say I live in the “world” as opposed to an isolationist country called the United States. Global dispensation of information, thanks to the internet and the “age of information” has afforded me the opportunity to really understand, or attempt to understand, the various differences in the peoples of the world, and even more importantly, the similarites, even though a lot of people seem to disagree vehemently about the most basic of tenets.

  For years, I’ve written on my blog and website that I believe the internet is a wonderful tool, where a lot of information can be gleaned, but that because it is a relatively unregulated forum, both truth and hearsay can exist perilously close in cyberspace, and the naive and uninformed can be easily boondoggled and hornswaggled into “understanding” the hearsay as truth, instead of the other way around.

  The other day I came across an entry from a rather popular Xangan who asks questions on his site. He asked a question concerning the destruction of the World Trade Center buildings in New York City five days after the eighth anniversary of this most heinous terrorist action. The question he posed was this: What brought the World Trade Center buildings down, the planes or explosives that were planted? I had to stop reading after only a few dozen comments. Not only does the 9/11 conspiracy theory, which for the most part declares that the towers fell because the U.S. government planted explosives to implode them, thereby making a case for invading Iraq, strike me as insane and un-American, besides some commenters belief in such a theory, there were JOKES made about the fall of the towers. This disturbs me greatly. Right after the towers fell, I still retained my “dove” status, and was derided on message boards on the internet for my views, in which I felt an invasion of Iraq and Afghanistan would result in a bloody mess that would last for years. I compared such a military action with Vietnam, and was roundly criticized. In the days right after the attacks, everyone was a patriot.

  Now, less than a decade later, it’s okay to make jokes about the deaths of over 3,000 people. This disturbs me greatly. It doesn’t surprise me that there are conspiracy theorists either, although it’s interesting that these theorists didn’t jump out right after the attacks, when the world wide consciousness seemed to be that the attacks were dreadful and atrocious. I always called Bush the “antichrist” but he certainly didn’t have anything to do with 9/11, except use it as an excuse to get the American people all riled up and angry, so he could go into Afghanistan and eventually Iraq and attempt to finish the job his father failed to do during the Gulf War. (and as I predicted, create “another Vietnam” in the process.)

  What bothered me about reading the comments on the particular post wasn’t that some misguided people believed wholeheartedly in the conspiracy theories. But that some people made fun of and joked about the fall of the World Trade Center and the 9/11 attacks.

  On the other hand, now that we have an African American mixed race President (I don’t consider Barack Obama “black” since he is part white) an event that was widely praised around the world right after the election, it seems to me from reading the news and some of the blogs that the South is rising again, and some folks seem to think the U.S. would be better of if our President were KILLED. A lump gets in my throat, and I start to get constricted just thinking about this. Nobody should ever think of killing anybody. And talk of killing a president is considered traitorous. I can understand if someone doesn’t like the guy, or even respect him or his policies. But talk of acutally ending his life hearkens back to the days of lynchings. The civil rights movement was back in the 60s, but there is a mentality running through the country where talk of assasinating the president of the U.S. is okay. This bothers me greatly. I read yesterday that there is a historic shortage of bullets in the U.S. right now. I’m all for gun ownership for hunters, but for the most part they don’t use handguns, and those are the bullets which are in short supply. I was greatly troubled at this bit of news.

  The unabashed and petty outbursts of celebrities and politicians  lately gets my goat. In one week, a famous tennis star seems to go ballistic (on the court) over what she believes is a bad call. A famous hip hop personality jumps onstage at an awards show and grabs the microphone from the winner to declare who he thought should win. A U..S. Congressman belts out “You Lie” during a speech by the president. I see where this came from and I can postulate where it’s going. Perhaps the proliferation of “blog mentality” where people can joke about the 9/11 attacks, or troll the blogosphere spreading vitriol and hate bombs upon those they feel are misguided (or too popular, from the “exodus” of top bloggers from Xanga I’ve been reading about) is spreading to the “real world”. People don’t seem to have a “moral compass” anymore. They “tweet” their innermost feeling. Celebrity twitter feeds are followed by milliions. So they don’t feel as if they need to practice manners at all anymore.

  I’m upset and distressed.

  The global stage has always been a hotbed of colonial oppression, infighting among rebellious factions, warring tribes and bloody messes. America used to have common sense. Now it seems, the United States is falling into a state of seige, where even the most tolerant and understanding person must be thinking “what’s going on?” Our society is quartered into religious zealots who don’t believe in scientific endeavor, ornery bloggers who think they know everything and that their opinion is holy, talk show hosts who love to rile up the masses, and conspiracy theorists who spread lies around the internet. Then there’s the rest of us, and we don’t know how we can make a change for the better. I’ve always believed the internet could be a worldwide discussion board, and that consensus could be reached among the most disparate of peoples. Now, in my own country, I’m seeing a rift grow almost as wide as the one that split the country in two back in 1861.

  I like to say I don’t know the answers, but I think about the questions. The media always reports on the worst news and it makes us think things are worse than they really are.
  I’m sure that the majority of people in my country are level headed, common sensical folk who are wondering why things seem to be falling apart, just like myself.

  Aren”t they?

  Are you?
  

  • 11:11 am
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