Peek-a-boo! I see you [America!]
“I remember when, I remember, I remember when I lost my mind
There was something so pleasant about that place.”
Sometimes — a little distance helps you see things for what they are. In the case of ‘Merica — it’s CRAZY! Not “ha ha — hold my beer and watch this” crazy. Vacant dead eyes crazy. The crazy that says “I’ve lost my mind and I don’t even care.”
The rest of the world already knows that ‘Merica is crazy. American’s are loud. Americans are boorish. We lack a sense of style and finesse. We’re appreciated for our exported culture (though not as ardently duplicated as we think) and accepted for our insatiable need to spend our high quality USD. Really though — most of the world thinks of typical Americans as Kid Rock. They do the circuit between New York, Miami, and Las Vegas and check their pilgrimage to the US off the bucket list. Once is enough.
Really though — this isn’t the crazy part of the US relative to the rest of the world. The true crazy comes from our position as international playground bully. Make no mistake about it, we’re bullies.
BULLY
[boo l-ee] noun, plural bullies.
a blustering, quarrelsome, overbearing person who habitually badgers and intimidates smaller or weaker people.
We like to think of ourselves as Tommy DiVito — Joe Pesci’s bully character from Good Fellas. We’re all lovable until we become a clown — and then we lower the boom.
Swift, decisive, and brutal. And always justified. Bully — perhaps. But we have a lot of responsibility, right?
To the rest of the world, we’re a little more like Biff from Back To The Future. Misquoting everything, outsourcing all the hard work (’cause he was stupid,) and generally covered in shit.
The rest of the world knows we’re going to act like a bully and generally just factor it into the exchange rate. It’s a fine arrangement — work with Biff when you need to but otherwise, leave him out.
I worry we’re not either of these and the type of bully we actually are is Chet from Weird Science.
He had a good run at it all — but once the power shifted, he became the piece of shit that he was.
The power has started to shift. While the USD is still the worlds reserve currency and our government remains stable (even with nut job Donald Trump dragging the political discourse into the garbage) — the emergence of BRIC countries, the (perpetually confused) Eurozone, and shifts in global markets spell the end of our (solo) economic dominance over the coming years. The school yard bully’s tool of last resort — a good threat or fight — isn’t going that well. Our military is tired. In the middle of it — we’re spending more time bullying our own on (ridiculous) topics like “who is *ALLOWED* to love whom,” how we can deny basic medical services to women, and whether or not Kanye will run for president in 2020.
All is not lost though. I liken this to an occurrence at our regular summer group camping trips. Adults surround the fire pit, drinking beers and “dogging” each other. The kids go off — probably sip beers — and do… well, who knows what. Until something (a tent, a kid) catches on fire and then all of a sudden — parents bring reason back to the situation. The parents might be a little tipsy, but the dynamic always changes. It’s time for bed — tomorrow’s another day.
But for the time being — I’ll keep my distance from the school yard bully.
