100 Reasons to Love America: An open letter to People Magazine

When I immigrated to the United States of America back in 1963, I had real reasons to “Love America”: Europe, and especially Germany where I was born, owed its very existence , evolving prosperity (in the ’60’s) and its security from the threat of Soviet takeover to America. As a young boy in bombed out and blockaded Berlin, following American soldiers through the streets (to pick up their cigarette butts to take in to Tobacco Shops for penny candy), I saw Americans as can-do, nothing is impossible, let’s fix it kind of people. Coming from bombed out Berlin to the US for the first time in 1951, thanks to my fathers posting to the German Consulate in San Francisco, seven years old, I literally felt like I had gone to heaven.

By 1963, when I finally immigrated, Germany had come a long way towards economic, social and political recovery, although in many ways it was still the “anything not explicitly allowed is ‘verboten’ “ country. And even then there were some disturbing events and trends in US social and political reality: the Vietnam War, the Civil Rights Movement, positive at the time, but worrying about what it said about America’s unresolved past, and the first signs of the extreme political polarization (under Nixons “Southern Strategy”) typical of the US today.

However, on a strictly personal level, I was still able to realize “The American Dream”, a good education, followed by good jobs, marriage to a wonderful American “girl”, and physical and financial security, even into retirement age. But I am one of the lucky ones, even in America; I’m white and middle class. There is a very large subclass, often native-born Americans, not immigrants, who had and have no chance at the American Dream.

The social, political end economic decline of America, first slowly and barely noticeable, has steadily accelerated, to the point today, with the US being at best second rate in all the international comparisons of social and economic wellbeing, that one has to, as I have, consider the United States a failed state - I submitted an opinion piece to the NYT to that effect (not accepted/not published) - http://rantingsofgrumpyoldguy.blogspot.com/2020/06/the-united-states-failed-state-united.html

With that as background, I came across the current (June 29, 2020) issue of People Magazine and their “100 Reasons to Love America”. Now, in fairness, People Magazine is a celebrity-oriented rag, and one should not expect “serious” thinking or writing from them. But even with that in mind, the list they published is just mind-bogglingly banal and self-delusional.

Just take the first six - the ones beyond that are so banal, I can’t even stomach commenting on them:

#1 Peaceful Protests

Yes, I am fully on board with most of the protests, currently for Black Lives Matter, and those back in my younger days, for Civil Rights and Anti-Vietnam War. And I get it, that sometimes fringe elements will create violence, which should not distract from the issues at hand. But, for example, here in Seattle (as in other cities) there was violence arson and looting, and to top if off, the City of Seattle has allowed the creation of, literally, a lawless zone in its midst, containing a police station, which itself in the past was created at the request of the local resident to have closer police presence to fight crime in that area,  where police are now not allowed to enter. This acquiescence to mob rule is certainly one of the many signs of a “failed state” condition which the US is descending into.

This item, as most of the others, is also a reflection of one of the central weaknesses of the American psyche, or personality: the need to feel that everything which happens here is unique, the best, the biggest, the greatest, etc. and the self-delusional refusal to look realistically at anything happening outside of the US.  Peaceful protest is happening around the world, because racial and other inequality is not unique to the US. See also the “peaceful protests” happening in Russia and other former Soviet states, protesting the autocratic suppression of any and all political opposition - protest in those environments takes real courage, and is not a “summer block party”, as Major Durkan likes to refer to the Capital Hill autonomous zone.

#2 American Optimism

I used to be an admirer of  “American Optimism”, that “can-do” spirit which so enthralled the rest of the world after World War II, personified at the national level by the Roosevelt government’s  Marshall Plan, and at the personal level by the American GI’s pitching in to make life bearable in bombed out Berlin.

But looking at Americas social and political decline over the past fifty years, that can-do approach has been replaced by a severe social and political paralysis. Socially, America is far behind all other advanced countries - we are the only first-world country without universal health care and one of the very few where college and university education is not free or at least heavily subsidized. Politically, our highly polarized two-party political system has caused virtual paralysis in dealing with urgent, social, political and economic problems, at the national, state and local levels. This dysfunctional political paralysis is largely responsible, among many other things, for the amateurish, fractured and highly politicized response to the current Covid-19 pandemic - together with the related lack of universal health care, responsible both for large segment of the population with severe untreated chronic health issues, and an inadequate, profit-driven health care infrastructure, exemplified by a severe shortage of ICU beds and lack of even rudimentary supplies of protective gear.

#3 MasterClass - actually, remote and home schooling

Here again, a “tell” on the American psyche - to highlight a private company trying to make a profit from the current pandemic, rather that the millions of dedicated parents and teachers trying to keep the education of our youngsters on track. This is like glorifying Trump University or the many private, for-profit colleges whose main goal is to cash in on the federally guaranteed (but not subsidized) high interest loans, not grants, for education.

#4 Stationary Bikes

Really ??!! Stationary bikes are something uniquely American to be proud of?

#5 Billie Eilish

OK, if one widens the scope here to “American performing popular artists”, I agree, that in general, they are a cut above the rest of the world. Personally, I don’t particularly care for Billie Eilish, but, for example, the poetic genius and performing honesty of someone like Kris Kristofferson, to me, is very rare and exceptional.

#6 Dr. Anthony Fauci

Yes, Dr. Fauci has proven to be an effective counter-balance to the irrational nonsense coming from The White House. But we also have to be honest and not succumb to blind hero-worship. Dr. Fauci did, in early January, downplay the threat of Coronavirus to the US, even though he couched that opinion in the generic cop-out of “things may change”.

We also need to remember, that Dr. Fauci allowed himself to be used to spread the blatant lies about the availability in the US of Coronavirus testing. During the infamous news conference with VP Pence, as well as in other interviews, Dr. Fauci echoed the blatant lies about the availability of testing in the US; he, of all people, was in a position to know that the early test kits from the CDC (which in typical American arrogance, it insisted on developing its own, rather that go with the proven one from the WHO) were rife with reliability problems.

Beyond #6, things really become trite and ridiculous (#7 Quarantine Cocktails - really??!!) that I don’t have the stomach to even critique these individually … except

#73 Judge Judy, could not agree more - one of my favorite shows!