Where are the Shades of Gray???

We live in a very “black and white” world where if you’re not a slut, you must be prudish. If you agree that a conservative person was right about something, you must be a neo-con. If Obama doesn’t get elected as president, all Americans are racist. If Hillary doesn’t get elected, all Americans are sexist and primitive. If you openly admit you didn’t vote for Bush, you must be an acid-tripping-tree-hugging-bleeding-heart hippie leftist. If you’re into moderate politics, you must be either a radical liberal or a radical conservative hiding underneath. If you say that you’re agnostic, some people think that you’re just too scared to say you’re an atheist. If you’re against Americanophobia, you must be pro-Bush. If you welcome the freedom of Christians to practice their religion, you are automatically assumed to be a bible-thumping red-neck Fundamentalist. If you support Israel, you’re automatically pinned as “hater” of Islam. If you feel that invading Afghanistan was justified, you are to be presumed a “war monger”. If you support the troops, you are thought to be FOR the war. If you make friends with liberals, you are to be assumed that you are one too. If you make friends with conservatives, you are assumed to be one of “them”. If you are against the violence of Fundamental Islam, you are considered to be “Islamophobic”. If you’re an American, you must be white, fat, lazy, stupid, individualistic, ignorant, arrogant, a greedy capitalist, a racist, a homophobe, materialistic, rich, overly patriotic, a religious fundamentalist, a neo-conservative, a war-monger that is obsessed with McDonalds, guns, violence, SUVs all while stepping on the poor man’s toe to obtain it all. This is how Americanophobic nationalists from other western countries perceive Americans.

But does this mean that if you’re a non-American, you are non-Caucasian, slender, politically correct, hard-working, intelligent, generous, humble, tolerant, don’t buy expensive things (because you’re saving that money to send to South Africa), you’re poor or belong to the lower middle class, you share your money with those that need it without question, you say “we” instead of “I”, you’re not patriotic, you’re an atheist, a radical Noam Chomsky liberal, against all wars, eat very healthy, exercise a lot, have no guns, are non-violent, you drive a tiny car, and if someone you know at work wants to get ahead or promoted, you do whatever you can to cooperate to help your co-workers move up in the company sacrificing your own status. You are a very nice and self-less person who never throws his trash on the floor?

Where are the shades of gray? Or is it… to err is to human American?

This is the world we live in. Simple-minded people come from all over.

Critical thinking is beginning to phase out little by little as insecure, bitter, and lazy individuals find it always easier to follow whatever the popular hype is at the time. They find strength in numbers. They are blind. They are sheep. They refuse to see the world in the complex shades of gray that it really is. Forget America. The entire world is dumbing down. The media has latched on to many people and have taken them hostage. Is it really the media’s fault, though? In my opinion, no. It’s always the fault of the one who chooses to be manipulated. Canadians and Europeans (the Americanophobic ones) will claim that their media is flawless. I find it natural for them to say this. If you are correctly brainwashed, you WON’T realize that you’ve been brainwashed. Your ears, to anything other than the popular consensus, are closed. Your eyes are forever shut to anything “out of the ordinary group think”.

Many Americans are brainwashed too.

But one thing that I admire about Americans is that we tend to vary more in our political opinions and opinions in general. We don’t have here a majority that thinks one way to such a degree that if someone were to deviate from “the norm”, we’d be considered a pariah.

Here are my questions: If you are European or Canadian and aren’t an Americanophobe (see definition), can you have friends that are Americanophobic and visa versa? Can you speak about any positive feelings about the US publicly in your country? How about Australians? Or New Zealanders? I’d be most curious. My guess is that it’s easier to have diversity of thought in a land that has over 300 million inhabitants such as America.

In a recent conversation with a Canadian that is against Americanophobia, the following only reconfirmed what I had previously felt. She states…

In Canada, one cannot say anything derogatory about any other culture without being politically incorrect or racist. Save the natives and the Americans, who are fair game. This is so ingrained in the “Canadian” culture that Canadians cannot/ do not think for themselves. If I said “French men are rude”, then GASP – Jenny! You are so rude and judgemental and how on earth can you look yourself in the mirror stereotyping an entire country like that! Yet, someone from Ohio comes into town and all the Canadians are whispering “That fucking American. He probably doesn’t even know we have a different currency up here. He is so ignorant and rude.” There is a blatant double standard here and I get treated like a pariah when I point this out.

Some say that all Americans do is watch Fox news and are brainwashed to believe that whatever Bush does is correct. But then we have people like Bill Maher, Howard Dean, George Carlin, Rosie O’Donnell, Michael Moore, Madonna, and literally TONS of American folk (or how about almost ALL of Hollywood) that speak out for the liberal party. Our press, as well, for the most part is liberal. You can find information on that here. Micheal Moore is a millionaire. If all of his profits were just made overseas, he wouldn’t be the success he is right now in the US. He has MANY fans here. But Americanophobes still run their mouths and complain that everything we touch, see, hear, smell and feel in the US is stars-and-stripes coated conservatism…. which is not true.

In a Vancouver Sun article on Canadian Anti-Americanism, a Canadian that truly sees America said the following regarding the way people feel about Bush:

Of course the Canadians, Europeans, and South Americans etc. are not alone in feeling ill treated. Many Democrats have a visceral dislike of the Bush administration and their feelings are reflected in American population as a whole. Literally millions upon millions upon millions of Americans simply loath the man; one result of this is that Bush bashing is a billion dollar industry in the States. Another result of this is that while Bush bashing is international in scope it has distinctly American face to it. Michael Moore is arguably its most recognizable figure and a good number of critiques have a Chomskyian like flavor to them. Of course, South Korea’s Roh Moo-hyun and German’s Schroeder are not the only politicians to capitalize on the phenomena either. Howard Dean was the first American politician to capitalize on it and his doing so set the tone for the Democratic primaries.

How come people from other countries cannot see this??? Bush is hated just as much in the US. It’s the “black and white” simplistic-world-view phenomena. A bottled-up hatred that needs an outlet finds [insert nation] as a convenient target for its release. Whether it be temporary anger or anger-management issues in general, an angry person only sees “black and white”. However, a person willing to look at an issue at several different angles seeing all of its complex shades of gray is not an angry person with an ax to grind. I’ve watched myself make sweeping generalizations before, and in retrospect, I realized that I had been furious. When you’re angry, there’s no will or time to reason and explore both sides of anything. Your vision is narrow and you’re on a mission. Seeing the shades of gray would only cause a person to look inward and find faults within themselves. And when you’re angry, you don’t want to see that!

Here’s a black and white example for you:

“Anti-Americanism is at base a totalizing, if not totalitarian, vision. The peculiar blindness of fanaticism can be recognized in the way it seizes on a certain behavior of the hated object and sweepingly condemns it, only to condemn with equal fervor the opposite behavior shortly after–or even simultaneously….According to this vision–in the sense that Littre confers on the word: a ‘phantom projection, a credulous fantasy of fears, dreams, delusions, superstitions’ – Americans can do nothing but speak idiocies, make blunders and commit crimes; and they are answerable for all the setbacks, all the injustices and all the sufferings of the rest of humanity.” — Jean-Francois Revel

Hat Tip: Christopher

Being a moderate, it is hard for me to find other Americans that share the same views I have. I know that they’re out there though. I base my political stances on what the issue is. I know that I’m in the minority here. This is one political class that you don’t find as often in the states. We find more a mixture of liberals, radical liberals, conservatives, radical conservatives, and “apathists” (my new term for those that just don’t care).

Anyway, America is very diverse in thought. And while we are not an entirely a free country in every aspect, how many other countries out there would put up with a person who aggressively challenges its government, and globally exposes his country’s weaknesses via creating books and movies one after another? What would YOUR country do about a Micheal Moore equivalent?