America in the House!!! Last week one of the biggest socialites in Saigon had his going away party and the theme was to dress like someone from your country. Therefore, I decided to dress as someone from a “Red State” and although my state of Ohio turned out red this time, I think that was simply an irregularity as most people from Ohio are most excellent. Perhaps my costume could have been construed as someone from Michigan or perhaps Indiana.
I also ran into a few of my friends from the State Department who also happen to be on my darts team and when I explained the costume they just shook their heads in disappointment.. 🙂
But speaking of the red states, I was contemplating on how it could be that Bush got elected for another term. I think one of the main reasons is that Bush just connected better with the people than Kerry. He was able to get them wound up just like an owner would get his dog excited over fetching a ball. “Come on Boy! Get the weapons of mass destruction, come on, come on, Lets Go! Let’s go attack an Arab country that is very little threat to us!!! Yea Yea!! ” This is what people in the blue states would call a “demagogue.” Now please don’t confuse this with demi-god, you people in the red states, it’s not the same thing.
But on a serious note, my buddy who just returned from the States says that the lack of honest debate in the USA is quite scary. Everyone who has lived abroad for any amount of time understands that leaders can whip the people up using demagoguery while vilifying those of a different opinion. The one thing that Bush is very good at is getting things done, and not getting bogged down in that horrible thing called debate and consensus. The democrats should also be castigated for not being able to get their act together and actually do something. Now don’t get me wrong, I still think America is one of the best countries in the world, but has simply hit a rough patch. It is fun from time to time when people get too negative about America to ask them where all good things come from…. TVs’, computers, cars, robots to Mars, the internet… where did all these things come from??? If it was up to other countries, we would still be riding donkeys and whatnot.. haha…
But why oh why, is America so polarized when we have such excellent universities and an educated population? Anyone who has taken a debate class knows that there are positive and negative aspects to both sides of a conflict. I think most of the world’s problems stem from a failure to understand the other side. If you take the war in Vietnam for example, the communist fighters really did believe in what they were fighting for and if we look at their situation, they had been oppressed by the Chinese for thousands of years, and then by the French.
But if we look at the other side in terms of the French, the French people thought they were bringing good things to Vietnam and “modernizing them” but it all came at a price. The Americans thought that Communism must be stopped because it was “oppressive” when the other side thought that Communism would be “liberating.” The truth is, the more one studies and understands the other side, the harder it is to define one side as good and right. If one reads Ho Chi Minh’s writing and read their constitution it speaks of liberty and freedom. The western powers wanted to keep Vietnam divided while Ho Chi Minh was trying to unify his country to make it strong. Many people will be angry at this opinion as I am just a foreigner in this country and they will say it’s none of my
business. But this brings up another issue which I will address shortly as I don’t want to get off my main point.
We have made so much progress in the USA that it’s disheartening to see the current administration define conflicts in terms of “Good and Evil.” Although they did get it right in calling North Korea Evil which the current leadership truly is. As you can tell by my writing, it’s very easy to go back and forth on every issue and this is what learning and experience does to you. But this will always be attacked from the extremists on both sides as fence sitting as though it that is a negative thing.
Now back to me being a “foreigner” in this country. I think in this age of air travel, the enthusiasm to learn other languages and understand other cultures people are integrating with each other much faster than before. Just take the massive protests in the USA at the moment. These people are just seeking the “American” dream like the Italians, Poles, Chinese and Irish before them. The borders of countries change and new lines are drawn such as when the USA took half of Mexico in the 1800’s. But people migrate and seek out better circumstances.
The detractors to immigration point to the fact that they are “illegals” which they are. The laws are there for a reason which may be the stability of jobs for those who are already “Americans.” But laws will not stop people from seeking out a better life such as Americans did when the forefathers broke the laws of their King, and the black civil rights leaders broke the unjust laws of the white rulers. So again it is quite easy to see both sides of the issue. The Statue of Liberty stand for freedom and is one of America’s greatest monuments. Other people too wish to come to America and good for them. So while the laws are in place for a reason, we must also understand why people want to come to America and be proud of that. I think the government is doing a good job of understanding both sides and trying to navigate this issue delicately.
Now let me digress to people calling me a foreigner in other countries. Sometimes it irks me when people call me a “foreigner” while I’m in their land. Anyone can come to the US and become fully American. But we cannot do this yet in the Asian countries and are always treated as outsiders. One lovely older lady kept saying during her speech at some business event that we must remember Vietnam is not our country and we are “guests” here.
For those “foreigners” who have lived here a long time, will it ever be possible that our cultures integrate so much that people from other nations will be accepted as the locals are? Many of them speak Vietnamese, Japanese, Chinese quite well. It may sound ridiculous now, but cultures can come together quite well in America,,, so will it ever be the same in other countries? Just a thought..
