honestly my rage is waning. . .
This is from the December 21 Doug Bower's column at Associated Content. I have tried to describe this phenomenon to people in the past. I think it hits gringos like another dull thud. They are used to it. People from other parts of the world are really shocked and dismayed."Whatever the cause, let's face it: There is an attitude of rage in America that dominates our lives. You cannot go to the supermarket, the mall, or drive down the street without seeing it or being a victim or perpetrator of it. My purpose mentioning this is not to harangue about the faults of America. I've left the United States and no longer living there have, in a real sense, forfeited the right to complain and gripe about the country of my birth. All I am doing is making an observation. I am saying that one of the most attractive things about where we live, in the center of México, is the lack of public rage that once made us too terrified to leave the confines of our home in America."
i really appreciate hearing stuff like this. while i am planning on moving to méxico and have no fear, you wouldn't believe (wait, yes you would i'm sure you've heard it, too) the talk around here about what Mecksiko and how this n that n the other it is. i like hearing subtle but profound advantages from people living there.
ReplyDeleteand um...my opinion? you have more of a right than many to critique america. you were born here, lived here, and now can compare. the world needs your comparisons. and america does, too. which is of the world, even tho it doesnt know it.
oh my bad. i get it, that was a quote. jeje. STILL!
ReplyDeleteyeah when i am looking at it it doesn't really look like it, i will change it....
ReplyDeletebut part of the hesitation that Bower describes, and that I feel too, is the hesitation of just contributing more rage to the whole fucked up system.
Obviously, Mexican's too, are very passionate and maybe even dysfunctional about their politics and their political system. But you never get the sense here that everyone hates each other the way you do up there. I think it is new, and it is the direct result of Newt Gingrich and what followed.
There are a lot of people, and I am guilty of it often, who base every decision they make on hating other American's now. And I'm not talking about the people all around the world. A Mexican would NEVER just up and hate you, or tell you they hate because of where you came from, and they certainly wouldn't start a blog just to tell the world the diseases and crime you, as a class, are bringing into the country and how we have to all put on sheets to stop you. They're smarter and more sophisticated here, often surprisingly like Europeans.
i shouldn't have said "the way you do up there" it is the sort of thing I am always telling my mom, and then she feels bad too, sorry.
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