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This page contains some editorial comments of Dr. Curtis FJ Doebbler. The material posted on this page is unedited versions of material that has been submitted for publication or which has been published. I welcome your reactions via the form at the bottom of the page. My homepage is http://dcregistry/homepages/curtis.html

What It Means To Be An American?

by CFJ Doebbler

I was amused to hear that the United States government has produced a booklet on what it means to be an American. Like many Americans, however, I felt somewhat offended that I had not been asked to contribute, but I understood that maybe there was just not enough State Department funding to go around to all 300 million of us. That’s all right, being a patriotic American I will donate my appraisal of the important function we play as Americans in the world today.

My Qualifications and Motivation

I am an American and have been one for more than four decades and therefore I feel well-qualified to write about what being an American means. First, let me tell you a little about my life as an American. I was born in Buffalo, New York, the heart of ordinary America. I went to high school, first at John F. Kennedy High School, then to Lakeland High School. The latter high school is known for ‘a first’ in American educational history: the longest teachers’ strike ever. After high school I went on to study journalism and American (English) Literature at Southern Methodist University in Dallas, Texas. Texas is so hard core American that I didn’t even whence with surprise when a former police officer and supervisor at a job I had as a security guard told me stories about how he and fellow officers regularly went out and physically assaulted minority kids just for fun. Perhaps those stories inspired me to study law at New York Law School. While there, as had as an undergraduate, I worked multiple jobs to pay for my education and borrow the usual tens of thousands that most college students borrowed.

Perhaps somewhat un-American of me, however, after law school I devoted myself to protecting human rights. While working as volunteer human rights defender I also continued my study by getting a Dutch masters degree and a doctorate both concentrating on international human rights law. I say this may have been un-American because the District of Columbia Admission Committee told me that by doing so I had intentionally impoverished myself and not sufficiently repaid my student loans. Thus today, several years after passing the District of Columbia Bar examination I remain unemployed and not allowed to practice the only profession in which I might be able to earn a living. Nevertheless, I live in the richest country on earth, so I guess I should not be worried.

My parents are German American and Mexican-Russian-American. Thus, like almost all Americans, I am an example of the ethnic melting pot that is America. I was brought up Catholic, although my mother later converted to Judaism. I believe only God knows one’s religion and that adherence to a religion is ascribed by deeds and not mere professions of faith. I remember going to Sunday school and to church religiously when I was a child. I came from a fairly large family by American standards—seven children—and we still remain somewhat close although scattered across the vast country.

I am a New York Yankees, Buffalo Bills, and Washington Capitols fan and still support my alma mater. Like many Americans, I like junk food, jogging, listening to music, and being with friends. Although I have lived abroad much of my life, like more than 50 million Americans, I have also spent significant parts of my life in the metropolitan East Coast areas stretching from New York to our nation’s capitol. When I have a paid employment, I pay taxes, social security, and donate to charity. I vote when I can and don’t when there is something more important to do, although unlike many Americans a football game might not be a priority.

There is little to suggest that I am an unordinary American and enough to suggest that I am an ordinary American. In any case, there is enough evidence to allow me to testify about what it means to be an American. So unlike the high paid Americans that have given their testimony for pay as part of America’s propaganda effort around the world, I am going to give you the real inside story without any economic incentive.

The Meaning of Being American

Americans are part of the richest most powerful country in the world. We don’t have to listen to anyone else and rarely do. We can do what we want, buy what we want, invest in what we want, and kill whoever we want—the last as a country of course, not merely as individuals. Thus while I might refrain buying goods from companies that produce them under conditions of child labour, this does not bind my compatriots. Nor are Americans prohibited from investing in companies or projects that exploit the natural resources and lives of people in developing countries. We can and do, do these things with surprising regularity and more than anyone else in the world. And because we are the country that can and has used aggression (armed force) around the world more than any other country in the contemporary world, there is a fairly good chance that if an American wants to kill people and happens to be between the formative ages of 17 and 35, he can get the chance to do so. In fact, there are even some people—the villains or terrorists, although both definitions are equally as vague—who we can kill at anytime an even get a government reward for doing so. Now that is real freedom.

Americans civic commitment to building the American dream is immense. As Americans we will struggle against any obstacle, we will impoverish any people for our own aggrandizement, and we will reap the benefits of anybody’s resource who we can manage to get our hands on whether by purchase, barter, force, bribery, threat, coercion or any other means. The American work ethic is strong. As Americans we are committed to working to keep our economy going at the same breakneck speed that it achieved under our infamous leader President Bill Clinton. Americans will work day and night at whatever job they can get. It makes no difference if an American is getting an exploitative wage; unless he is wealthy and educated in which case he should be exploiting others and ashamed if he is not doing so. To Americans it makes no difference if their waged is earned by exploiting others anywhere else in the world. Americans do not discriminate. They exploit other Americans as well as foreigners. Our rule is exploitation without discrimination…well maybe Trent Lott, our new Senate majority leader, is an exception to this, but generally the rule holds true, we do not discriminate.

Americans invest around the world. And we do a damn good job of it. Even our development assistance to the poorest countries in the world gets us a return of about 10 to 1. This is better then even high tech stocks today. We are not cowards about investing around the world. Okay we use the World Bank, IMF and Export Banks to spread our liability onto the shoulders of less wealthy countries, but since we control the overwhelming majority of the world’s capital we can afford to do so and they can’t afford to say no. We are committed to privatization and removing trade barriers. How could we not be, these are better for America then it is for anyone else. Think about, if we have most of the capital, then of course we will want to have the greatest freedom to manipulate the international economy to make our fortune bigger. Just look what has happened recently: while the world is in economic doldrums, we Americans are getting proportionately richer. We are such smart investors, us Americans.

Americans pride themselves on their patriotic courage. Therefore, as Americans we commit ourselves to protecting our country by bombing any other country in the world from more than 30,000 feet. That’s right they can’t even see it coming with their meager sub-par second-hand weapons that we sold them in the first place. Well, yes, these weapons could be used against us in a fair fight, but as long as we stay beyond the clouds we can kill combatants, civilians—mainly women and children—with impunity, because we are merely dropping bombs from the sky on an enemy. Alright we might support Israel as it slaughters unarmed Palestinians and undemocratic regimes in Pakistan, Uganda, Kenya, and elsewhere, but remember these people support America. Most importantly, Israel, who we help the most, is even willing to kill in our name and in the same ways we do. Look what happened when we attacked Afghanistan, they attacked the Palestinians based on the same grounds of self-defense. We had extended it to aggressive war by our attack and they extended it to attacks within what they call their national boundaries. We worked together perfectly to dismantle the existing international law. What a great ally they are! Indeed, unless you are with us, unless you live in America or in a friendly country, or unless do what we tell you to do, then you are against us!

Don’t get me wrong. Americans love the rest of the world. We want to cooperate with everyone else. We are, however, wedded to the idea that whatever we do is right and you had better follow our lead if, you don’t…well, Americans will brag, we don’t have to tell you the consequences, just look at our arsenal of weapons of mass destruction including chemical weapons and think about all the jobs we keep if we use these regularly. Also look at our record. What is the only country to use a nuclear weapon? What country also used chemical weapons and now has the largest stockpile in the world? What country still uses landmines? If you aren’t scared yet just remember we can even create enemies when we need practice targets by selling our weapons to the very people who we later make our enemies. Think about it were would Bin Laden and Saddam Hussein be without American support?

Americans are really class individuals. Look how much we contribute to art. We love to buy art with the money we earn from exploiting others. We love to watch television. Our televisions have as many as 800 channels…now that is culture! Where else can you find advertisements that last for five minutes and on which more than ten million dollars are spend. Where else can you find programs where overeating is glorified and individuals are encouraged to announce their infidelity on the airwaves? And where else can you find professional wrestling! That is real culture. Americans are proud that their networks devote more time and money to these programs then to world news. Nobody wants to hear what others think around the world when we are the most important nation in the world.

Americans also go to church regularly. We are very religious breed. We pray for our wealth. We pray that we will be able to keep it and enhance it. We pray for their families. We pray that we will be able to protect our families and that we will be able to kill although those who threaten them. We pray that priests will not molest our children because that might mean that we will have to spend more time with our own children. And we pray that God will make America great so that it can stomp on anyone anywhere in the world who annoys us. Yes, Americans are indeed God fearing. Don’t forget the Klu Klux Klan (KKK) was formed on the basis of the Bible to ensure a ‘God-given’ America. This shows how tolerant we are. We accept all religions. Indeed, there are some that have no God, but they are religions so we accept them. Well, maybe we profile Muslims, but that is different, they don’t have the wealth and the political clout of the Jews and the Christians.

Oh, don’t think from what I just said that we still support the KKK, no way! Americans are egalitarian. Everybody can compete with us, just as long as we win the important competitions most of the time. And we are humanitarian. We complain when we see poor people. They should not be seen. We are democratic. We strive to build a strong nation of elites. Just try to run for election. Unless you have the money to pay for it, Americans won’t vote for you. We know we have some pretty bad politicians, but that is not our fault—look most Americans voted for Gore not Bush in the last election and we can’t help that our electoral college system and our Supreme Court doesn’t allow him to take office.

As I have pointed out Americans are honest, hardworking individuals with very little political consciousness. We vote for who we are told to vote for. If their father or grandfather was a politician then undoubtedly they too can be. We even vote for women and minorities, sometimes (not too often), that’s how good we are.

Thus, I beseech you, before you go reading the propaganda that the State Department promulgates about Americans, read what real Americans think. We are a rich people. We are a powerful people. We are the greatest people on earth and no less.

Oh yes, I almost forgot, we are also modest, but this I am sure you have understood from my honest portrayal of what it means to be an American.

25 December 2002

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