Ha! Ha! Glad to see your sense of humor is intact, leprechaun!

Well, I lived for ten years in New York State (upstate, small town New York State) as a Canadian citizen, from an essentially far more liberal society (in Canada) than the one I found myself in there. People were exceedingly bigoted and prejudiced, I found, not to mention downright ignorant of anything outside the borders of small-town USA. It was hell being in school there and being "different". I grew to hate their right-wing politics, their belief that they were living in "the greatest society on Earth" (desperately untrue!), their astounding lack of empathy for the Vietnamese people whose nation was being devastated by their government's insane foreign policy, their arrogance and sense of superiority, their blindness, and their self-absorption.

I became very radicalized by the experience, and I returned to Canada in 1969, to a society that was the antithesis of theirs, psychologically speaking, to cities that were a paradise compared to the cultural and social wasteland of places like Syracuse or Buffalo, to streets that were safe and lively at night (unlike Syracuse), to a place where I could talk casually to a black person on the street just like I would to anyone else, to a place where cops were trim, honest, and helpful...man, what a contrast!

I saw the face of the Big Lie in America, leprechaun, the face of decadence, moral decay, and oppression, and I have never forgotten it. How would someone who appreciates intellectual freedom and tolerance have felt having spent some time as a foreign visitor in Nazi Germany between, say, 1933 and 1937? Think about it. It was a bit like that. I've never lived in a place so obsessed with its past and present history of warfare, its flag, its military prowess, and its knee-jerk patriotism as the USA. I'm sure there are other such places, but I haven't witnessed them firsthand. None of them is as powerful or dangerous as the USA either.

If you've spent your life living in the USA, I don't expect you to really get what I'm saying here. It won't seem real to you. That's understandable. Your patriotism is also understandable.

But the rest of the World outside the USA gets exactly what I'm saying. The USA is the most feared country on the face of the Earth. That is not because Americans are bad people (they're not!), but it's because they are under a bad, megalomaniac military-industrial system, and it's getting worse by the year.

I have lived a pretty disciplined and sensible life, on the whole. If everyone out there was like me, I would have nothing to worry about whatsoever in this life, and I wouldn't need a lock on my door, and I would fear no violence from any quarter.

(On the other hand, it would make for a dull world, I suppose!) :-)

I ask your pardon in advance for anything I've said above that may have offended you, but that's the best way I can explain it.

By the way, I saw the hypocrisy, laziness, and self-indulgence in the hippies and leftist kids generally in the late 60's too. It was pretty lamentable in a lot of cases. I'm afraid there are a lot of bottom feeders out there, and they jump on the first convenient bandwagon that attracts them...whether it be right-wing American fundamentalism, military-patriotic fervor, or left-wing radical dissent. Judge them by their personal conduct, not their political rhetoric.

- LH