The Peaceful Leader
M Alan Roberts

I am a red-blooded American all the way. I was born in a farming community in Ohio in the late 60's and grew up with solid, moralistic American values. I was taught to respect my neighbors, elders and just about everyone else who wasn't directly assaulting me. You can definitely say that I am truly proud to be an American!

Well, except for the fact that America is the most war mongering country on the planet. Yeah, I don't like that very much. We kill those who have been repressed into ignorance to gain control of their oil reserves. I guess that I'm just a little tired of all these self-glorifying infidels who call themselves "real Americans" because they support the war "effort". Maybe, once or twice in history, war has actually been justified, but certainly not this brutalizaton of the Middle East. Hey, but besides that, I am surely proud to be an American.

Well, come to think of it, there is one more thing I am not so proud of. It's the fact that we are trying to control those oil reserves, instead of investing those hundreds of billions of dollars, that the war is costing us "Americans" (and the rest of the planet), on the research and development of alternative energy provision. Nature provides this planet - not just North America - with everything that it needs to take care of itself. Solar, wind turbine and hydroelectric power are the waves of the future. If America was truly so great, perhaps it would become a force for peaceful change and sustainable, renewable energy provision. Anyway, if it weren't for those two issues, I would be really happy to be an American.

Yeah, good old America - Land of the Free!

Oh, that reminds me, America only constitutes 5% of the world's population, yet America "owns" over 50% of the world's prisoners! That sort of makes me not too proud of my country. You see, if you don't have money or social status, you're most probably going to be going to jail or prison. Sure, people who steal, rape, murder and the like should go to jail. However, over 50% of the jailed or imprisoned in America are non-violent, first-time offenders - mostly for trumped-up drug charges. We spend far more money on building new jails and prisons than on building new schools for our children. So, I guess maybe that's another reason why I am not so proud to be an American.

And then there's the fact that we, the richest nation on the planet (not for long), simply will not provide health care for our people. Our government doesn't want us to live after we get to the age where they have to pay us to live. That's the same reason that they encourage us to eat animal muscles, organs and skin. It's the same reason why they strongly subsidize the beef, pork, poultry, dairy and seafood markets, but not the fruits and vegetables markets. Did you know that without the US government subsidizing beef, a pound of hamburger would cost about 10 times more than it does currently. Ask yourself why they would do such a thing knowing that cholesterol kills second only to mass-induced stress - which comes from them as well.

Well, it's Memorial Day here in the US. We honor our veterans that passed doing their duty. We want to remember them for all of the positive change that our consistent warring brings to the planet. It's not their fault, of course. They strive for honor and goodness - they just fail to realize that they are serving a government that couldn't really care any less about them. When a soldier ant drops dead, the rest of the colony moves on never thinking about it again - just like America.