The true colours of the USA

A friend, on his return to Spain from a vacation in California in the late eighties, remarked, “Even the liberals in the US are often quite conservative.” I was stunned at his trenchant observation. I had long ago concluded that most Americans were quite irritatingly conservative, but I never expected to witness such insight from this particular pal who was an ardent defender and  member of Spain’s right wing party, Partido Popular. In Spain his comments made him a rightist in the eyes of his socialist peers; in LA, his views led  many Yanks to deduce he was a libertine. I recall this anecdote as I ponder the map that shows which state voted for  whom in last Tuesday’s US election. The map is predominately red, red as in  Republican, red neck, white and right wing.  In the west and east margins of  the map, there are a few navy splotches. These blue blemishes demark the  minority states that voted for the Democrats and John Kerry, fewer than in  2000. It is a graphic that in my opinion shows the truecolour of the USA  and which ironically, finally “outs” Americans, after a race in which they  gave George W Bush the edge because of, among other things, his strong  opposition to gay marriage.

It states in bold red ink what many of us had  already surmised:  the US is more and more a Christian, socially  conservative nation which prefers simple-minded, immoral, self-serving,  war-mongering, “God-anointed” liars to rational, secular leaders with a  sophisticated, progressive message. The map also says that the Americans have now sanctioned an unnecessary,  unlawful war that is proving costly in both monetary and non-monetary terms. As I write this column, 1,100 American soldiers have lost their lives.  Thousands more have been wounded. The number of Iraqis killed could be as  high as 100,000. Billons of dollars have been spent on the war in Iraq and  billions more will have to be expended. Predictions for the US economy are  mainly gloomy. It is for this waste of life and resources that most  Americans voted Tuesday. This electoral map is worth seeing if only because for decades the world has  treated the US like a moral guide, marching to its drums of “holy” wars: war  on tobacco, war on drugs, and war on communism. These battles were embraced  wholesale by governments worldwide. Money was the US God so it became the  deity of the rest of the world.

America’s notions of right and wrong  prevailed and its intolerance of its large number of “moral enemies” seemed  to be spreading globally.
As I write I am also reminded of an unexpected  tongue lashing I got years ago from a Trini living in the US and all because  I was smoking a cigarette. His indignation was not founded on concern for my lungs and heart. He was expressing his moral outrage because in his view,  what I was doing was akin to a sin. He accused me of having gone astray  because I was living in Europe and when he said Europe, you would have sworn  it was the continent of iniquity. I think though that what most offended him  was my brazenness: I had lit a cigarette when I knew there was a moral “American” in the vicinity. Did I not know that American morality was global  morality? I wonder what he’s saying now. And what’s the rest of the world thinking after Tuesday’s result? Are there  many people left who view Americans as having any right to determine what is  moral and ethical? The answer must be an unequivocal no. We had already been  “Bushwhacked” into waves of nausea before Tuesday. 

Now, we feel assaulted by the American people themselves since the invasion of Iraq can no longer  be chalked up to George W Bush immorality and greed. Iraq is a stain on the  soul of all Americans, sadly, even on the souls of the sensible millions who  voted for Kerry. America can no longer call the moral shots; it can only  bully the world with its weapons of mass destruction. “American values”  means nothing. Americans will be increasingly hated and distrusted; those  who voted for Kerry will be treated with equal contempt and suspicion as the  ones whose immoral Christian right fingers put Bush back in the White House. Kerry supporters will have to look over their shoulders when abroad as much  as Bush backers. And they’ll have to look a lot because Americans are about to become more  despised. George W has just got started. I’ve been writing this column  Friday into Saturday morning because I’ve been monitoring events in Iraq on  the Internet and on TV for 24 hours.  Bush, boosted by his victory Tuesday,  has launched a massive military assault on the Iraqi town of Fallujah in an  effort to “root out resistance.” 

This latest offensive has naively been  touted by the Bush administration as key to Iraq’s security. The American  president must know something the rest of us don’t since even as the US  concentrates its military might on Fallujah, in a nearby town, Samarra, a  town seen as a success story by the Americans, Reuters is reporting 37  people killed by “insurgents.” Everywhere there is resistance to the Yankee occupiers and to those who help them. Welcome to Iraq, Bush-land, a paradise  for terrorists. As I watch and read the news, I return occasionally to my electoral map. I  wonder how Americans will feel about this exposing geo-political chart in  years to come. I hope they’ll gaze on it with shame and that they’ll wonder  how they could have coloured their country red, red as in the blood of  Iraqis and Americans spilt in Iraq, red as the Republican plan to keep the  white in the flag and to control the world’s black gold. However, if my  Spanish friend was correct in his observations years ago, it is quite likely  that they will continue to expect the rest of us to roll out the red  morality carpet for them and escort them along it. It’s up to us to tell them to go the devil. We’ve seen their morality, their true colours. None of the two is a sight to behold. suz@itrini.com