I'm ashamed of far too many Americans
In response to a current diary on the rec list I'd like to suggest an alternate viewpoint.
I am not ashamed of America, I am ashamed of what far too many Americans are doing to a great nation.
I am ashamed of Congress
I am ashamed of the blatant hypocrisy, childishness, sophistry, outright lies, self-serving political spin that has become the defining practice of what was once, ostensibly, a mature deliberative body. I am ashamed that people like Michelle Bachman get to blather their idiocies and get treated like respectable thinkers. I am ashamed that blatant, bought-and-paid-for corporate shills get to pretend that they are doing anything that is good for America and no one calls them on it. Or when they do, it is the whistle blowers who get treated like they are the ones with a hidden agenda.
I am ashamed of the President
Who apparently sees himself as an above the fray" arbiter between ideologies and thus cannot bring himself -- or be expected to - to fight for the very policies and ideas he claims to believe in and for which he was elected. Who is apparently incapable of fighting anyone but his own party. Who consistently caves when he could have fought and won. Who openly negotiates with himself and gives away valuable policy before he is even challenged. Who eagerly meets his opponents half way and then goes the rest of the way all by himself, allowing his opponents to get away without even raising ah hand to fight.
I am ashamed of the courts
Once again Scalia has weighed in on an issue in a way that is puerile and deceptive. In much the same way the he became a communist for a day way back in 1996 when he said he thought gay people didn't deserve equal treatment under the law because gays were too wealthy and politically well-connected. Which might have been the first time a conservative has claimed that any group of people could be too rich or too politically well-connected or deserved opprobrium because of it. Scalia has never let his supposed core beliefs get in the way of his bigotry or sophistry. This week he decided that class action suits are too big to succeed, especially when they are brought against a large, wealthy and politically well-connected company like Walmart, which is too big to fail (or be sued, apparently).
I am ashamed of our media
Who repeatedly and gullibly take republicans at their word. Who cannot ever seem to notice that Fox news is not "Fair and Balanced." That republicans routinely lie and that their "arguments" are routinely facile and without serious merit. I am ashamed of a media that cannot bring itself to admit that there are not two equally valid sides to every argument and that some ideas and policies are simply morally, intellectually and ethically wrong. I am ashamed of a media that sees news as just another form of entertainment, rather than the backbone of a reliably-informed populace and crucial to a working democracy.
I am Ashamed of far too many Americans
Especially the Tea Baggers (and, yes, I refuse to call them by their chosen cognomen "Tea partiers" because they haven't earned a scintilla of respect and it was they themselves who idiotically chose the tea bagger theme. Just because they were ignorant and stupid doesn't mean they should get a pass on being laughed at for it). The tea baggers have never been ones to indulge self reflection or play "spot the hypocrisy" in their own rhetoric. They want the government's hands off their medicare. They want nothing less than something for nothing from the government, and want to make sure other American citizens (those they define as the undeserving) don't get any of the privileges they themselves enjoy. They want a single all-powerful republican party to rule the thousand year tea party that will celebrate the glory of white people and xtians and reduce all other Americans to third-class status in their own country. They don't hate government, they hate equal protection under the law, and government that doesn't think they are special and deserving of more, more, more -- always taken from the pockets of others. They are whiny babies who never grew out of the terrible twos and they have been throwing a collective, infantile temper tantrum ever since a black man dared to win the presidency of the United States.
But I am NOT ashamed of America
America has done nothing wrong; the nation has been abused and co-opted by a radical branch of an increasingly lunatic fringe, aided and abetted by self-serving corporations and the lowest common denominator of a lazy and puerile fraction of the populace.
I am not ashamed of the Americans who still stand up to the forces of corporate overlordship and plutocracy. The Americans who stand for justice and freedom for all and not just the monied few or the politically correct. The Americans who believe in a better world for all of us and not just a better world for "me and mine."
I am not ashamed of us, here at Daily Kos and the millions like us who fight every day for a better America for all Americans and a better world for all people.
We have nothing to be ashamed of. And everything to fight for and win.