My America is like the most beautiful girl in the class. Her majestic mountains, trembling fields and inviting sandy beaches drives all other girls to be just like her, and gives the boys a raging hard-on. But is often the case with the prettiest girl in the class, when I look into her eyes, I see nothing--only empty space, devoid of any thoughts except of herself. She is foolishly proud, undeniably stuck-up and exudes the ignorance of youth. As the rest of the world moves into their calm, insightful forties, my America is a hormone-raging, pubescent girl-child who already knows everything and so refuses to listen to the wisdom and experience of her elders.

My America means blacks resent whites for the crimes of ancestors, Hispanics view the Itchi as lazy whiners, Africans are bound together by their common French language, the Asians keep to themselves, while the whites are scared and threatened by all.

My America is doctors who no longer make house calls and instead of taking only what a person can afford for treatment, charge $140 for a five-minute visit. My America is insurance companies who charge $300 a month for the privilege of paying a $2000 deductible, $20 co-pay on visits and prescriptions, while refusing to pay for certain needed tests before forcing us to pay at least 20% of the remaining bills.

My America is pharmaceutical companies who legally anesthetize the country with Paxil and Zoloft, causing us to forget that one of the joys of life is to live it, experience it, so we can work through our problems and become stronger people. They sell pain pills and mood elevators cheaply, and force us to pay outrageously high prices for the medicines that will cure our ills, instead of mask them.

My America is parents who want to give their children better lives and do so by buying them "things" instead of giving them the most precious gift of all, their time. They are so busy working for the "American Dream" that they don't notice thirty bombs being built in the garage by their teenaged sons.

My America is an up and coming generation who've been stroked, coddled and protected from the harsh realities of real life. They've been programmed to "be a team player" and indoctrinated into thinking that merely participating, no matter their performance, makes them special. All concepts of individuality and leadership have been replaced by conformity and following.

My America is full of people proclaiming "We're the Best" without ever having left the country to see how everyone else lives. Many have never been further than their state's borders. The only black person they've met is the, Mr. Willie who bags their groceries, and the only Hispanics they know are the guys who landscape their lawns.

My America is keeping up with the Jones, success measure by materialistic belongings, while forgetting that "He who dies with the most toys still dies."

My America believes ten people placed in a house or on an island, manipulated by a television production staff (to cause conflict), is an accurate portrayal of reality.

My America refuses to take responsibility for its actions. Instead, its "I drowned my children because my step-daddy molested me" or "They bullied me so I snapped." In my America, it's always someone else's fault.

My America is a president who denies that oral sex is sex, consequently sending our daughters downward in a spiral of objectification and low self-worth. My America is a president who had two failed businesses, yet still becomes the leader of the free world, then takes our children into a war on false pretenses, greed, and helping out his "old boy network."

My America is a place where people do good because they've been told and expect that it will come back to them three-fold. In my America, no one does good because it's the right and honorable thing to do. And those few who do good expecting nothing in return except friendship and a decent, caring humanity, are left used, vacant, and cynical.

My America is run by greedy corporations, whose CEO's make ten times that of policeman, firefighters and teachers. And when their excess runs their companies into the ground, they loot pensions while receiving a hefty Golden Parachute, or expect the people actually doing the grunt work to take a 23% cut in pay and refuse to do the same.

My America is college graduates working in kitchens and grocery stores, while corporations save money by sending their jobs overseas. My America values celebrity and athletic ability over education and intelligence. It's not what you know or how hard you work, it's who you know.

My America is judgmental to those with different beliefs, cultures and opinions. Ironic for a country supposedly founded on religious freedoms and live and let live principals. In my America, separation of church and state is nonexistent. Instead we foolishly (and arrogantly) believe that "God is on our side." Meaning that only we, out of the whole world, are right and everyone else is wrong.

My America has only the illusion of freedom, which consists of inane choices such as paper or plastic, a Beemer or a Mercedes, rock or country, the Steelers or the Packers. In my America, voting for an independent is a fruitless endeavor.

In my America, the wealthy decide what's best for the rest of us, passing laws that only serve to breed dissention within the ranks of lower classes and ethnicities. If we're busy fighting and distrusting each other, we won't be concerned with the elite handful pulling the strings.


As I get older, I see that where my country once was, what it stood for is far from where we are now, and so I cry for my America. She has lost her way, relying too heavily on her good looks and bulging bank accounts. I can only hope that, maybe, in several hundred more years, when she's thrown off the arrogance and ignorance of her teens and early adulthood, she will reevaluate her life, as all of us do when we age, and finally become the country she was meant to be.