Observations of an American Expat in Europe

Prefacing all with the news that not one American living in Europe that I have come across can see any sense in the US administration’s actions and attitudes as regards Iraq – forgetting the rest of the world for the moment as too many books are being not published about that, and one who’s Vietnam era brother who was ready to disappear into Canada to avoid being drafted now says things like ‘ we ¨have to get them before they get us’ - perhaps a bit rhetorically but who is the them, and who are the us? This is not a tirade, nor the random meanderings of a political naif or idealist but the stream of consciousness of one somewhat worldly American. The same person whose 78 year old mother said the other day that she no longer trusts the information being fed via TV and newpapers and doesn’t know what is real anymore...

Having read recently (can’t remember where exactly, IG Airport bookshop waiting for flight & browsing – Arundhati Roy I believe?) that when Vajpayee in the US visited Indian expats in Long Island, NY he got the largest cheers for his anti Muslim pro RSS remarks. There are dangerous rednecks worldover, independent of the colour of their outer skin. Like my brethren from Brooklyn who go set up settlements in the West Bank as if on a mission from God. Whatever happened to ‘thou shalt not covet’.

Even worse, the US is now REQUIRING full data access to all travellers to the US including such insignificant details as employer, home address, credit card details, full travel profile (eg. frequent flyer club details where you’ve been, where you like to go etc.) meal preferences and the list goes on, so they can profile the non-pork eaters as radical Muslims and terrorists or at least to prove they’re not good Christians because as we all know the only person you can trust is a bible thumping pork eating born again alleged ex alcoholic alleged cocaine abusing alleged adultering ‘Christian’ alleged president from Texas or other great state in the US, but , never vegetarians or Jews of course, or simple non pork eaters god forbid as they are clearly of suspect politics, maybe even liberals or voting democrats. Now maybe I’m overreacting but having grown up in a democratic country where no one would accept being tracked by the government and ultimately relied on a bureaucratic incompetence for anonymity and the chance to avoid prison for political and antiwar beliefs by going to say Canada, to now be tracked worldwide by the same incompetents with police state power, now that is truly disturbing. So even though the US Congress expressly forbade John Poindexter’s (ex Iran Contra Reagan brainchild) from his pet ‘Total Information Awareness Software’ for domestic spying, the US regime manages to get it anyway via other means by people who travel to AND from the US. Better stay at home BillyBob, buunch of forners anyhow when you git on a airoplane.

The US ambassador to Switzerland had the vapidity to then to offer up in an interview with the Swiss press that the US was not a police state, but is only interested in its own security. When assumedly intelligent Americans state with a straight face that if there is nothing to hide there is nothing to worry about so get used to having the government watch over you to protect you. The simple fact that these data requests violate the sovereignty of nearly every European country which have strict data protection laws is irrelevant. I lose my stomach to admit I am an American as it shames me to see what my government is doing in the name of security. I also don’t like the fact that I now have to walk around with an even bigger bullseye on my back then before. Not to mention all the locked up people in the US who have no access to lawyers, family, freedom, plus the Muslims, Arabs who have to register for early arrest. Yes guilty people will be rounded up before they have the chance to commit mass murder, but if one looks at the success rate of the death penalty in executing innocent people, I’d rather take my chances in the randomness of numbers and a general trust in most people. I still think the odds of getting nailed in an armed robbery far exceed the odds of getting it from a terrorist, and I kind of like the concept of trusting in other people be they white skinned or otherwise. Tim McVeigh at last check was about as white as they came.

Comparisons of the Bushies (spellchecker didn’t like Bushiites, too close to Shiites?) to Hitler are simple, Hitler took control of the state apparatus with the acquiescence (plus some handy assassinations and general intimidation) of the legal system, then chipped away systematically and ‘legally’ at all rights of Germans, yes they accepted it and the ones who didn’t were carted off and killed, the mass killings of Jews and others only occurred after the rules of the game were changed over the course of years. Had he said in 1933 from one day to the next Germany would look like it did in 1940, its questionable whether things would have panned out the way they did. I don’t expect that the US will become a mass murder machine of its own citizens, but stifling dissent is another story entirely. Bombing a few cities from 40’000 feet during a war is okay of as long as you’ve knocked out all the antiaircraft batteries ahead of time and is even prudent. But to ‘do’ poorly armed Arabs / Muslims who can’t really fight back in the classic sense - their revenge acts will be used as further justification for more erosion of freedom. There are plenty of well armed Arabs/Muslims/North Koreans who are all striving to be even better armed – why no worries about them?

Whatever happened to the concept of educating people to like you rather than bombing them into fearing you. Bomb and kill innocent people in Iraq to free them from .... their oppressed lives under a dictator and slow death from lack of food water medicines? What about the millions who starve in North Korea, no need to liberate them from their oppressed lives? Die fast or die slow, at least know who is responsible for your death. My first European boss was by chance an Austrian, who taught me some lessons when I complained about the unjustness of a management decision:
· Power is right (Macht hat recht)
· Another catchy German phrase (got to love that language) Arbeit macht frei (work will set you free) straight from the gates of a concentration camp. Yes it set people free from the worries of life .... once they died of being worked and starved to death.

So on to more pleasant topics, I keep thinking it can’t get any worse in the US but somehow, it does. For a country that was founded in a revolution to gain rights and freedom away from a repressive government, the fact that the people can’t recognise that they are losing all their rights liberties and benefits of a free and slightly socially oriented society due to a willing suspension of disbelief is galling.

Yes democracy is a self correcting enterprise, in theory, and maybe moreso in a parlimentary system with votes of confidence, but if you have a coalition of the willing (or uninformed) don’t hold your breath.

Look out for act II, Patriot 2, that is, shaken not stirred. black gold, Texas tea.