I have definitely lost something over the past few years, even more so recently, it seems to be escaping me even more and more.
I am culturally an American. What that used to mean was that I had a certain golly-gee-whizness in my outlook and an indomitable belief that everything would work out for the best. For some reason, maybe for many reasons, that golly-gee-whizness is no longer there. It has been replaced by a dark, pessimistic cynicism. A perfect example of this happened yesterday...
I was on the phone to my mother who is back in the States. She asked me whether I voted or not in the US elections. She was treated to a rant about how, due to immigration policy (formed under both Democrats and Republicans) that won’t let my wife have a green card unless I have $66,000 cash in a bank, the whole lot of them can kiss my ass. Three years ago they were jumping all over each other to make citizens of any one living illegally in the US (which was only held back by the threat of mob backlash). She seemed to think that politics have changed in the US since then, making a reference to the Tea Party movement.
I am extremely cynical: the Tea Party may get the politicians talking one way for a little while, but none of them, especially career politicians, will do anything to really change the way their business is done. As far as I’m concerned, for the next few years, I have been effectively exiled from my own home country, because it is now too late, due to personal circumstances, for us to really try to make a move to the US again for another eight years or so. (My wife’s application was rejected about two years ago, which would have been a good time for us to start the process of establishing residency in the states again.)
And I’m probably going to see my income get taxed more by those bastards, as I happen to be a citizen of the only developed country in the world that feels it can tax its citizens on money that they’ve already been taxed on in the place where they earned it. And they can all just kiss my ass.
Oh yeah, Republicans will pay lip service to lowering taxes on those of us living abroad (and actually, I’m not really paying right now as I come in under the threshold, but it is still a pain in the ass to deal with.) But I’m really skeptical when I am the apparent low-hanging fruit that they can pick. As someone once said, democracy is mob rule with neckties. Why should anyone give a sh** about what happens to those of us who are living and working outside of the US?
But what I am getting at, though, is that I have developed what feels like a well-reasoned deep mistrust of institutions and people that I’ve never really had before. And I am becoming angry. Generally grumpy. I’m not the best company of late. There’s bound to be something wrong with the person who finishes his diatribes with the words: “And they can all just kiss my ass.” Especially when that person uses it more than once in one day...
3 comments:
I'd say I share that feeling. Add to that a kind of morbid fear of the way the world, life, is spinning out of control. It scares me more to read an American say this though. I suppose because this feeling is partly ingrained into a British psyche from birth. The fear is new though. Started, for me, around 9/11 and gets worse every time i switch on the news.
I think it may have started back then for me, as well. But it also coincided with living in Germany, too, which took its own sort of toll.
But it has become particularly bad in the past three-four years...
Have you noticed that there is a general decline in civility in the work place? Just about everywhere I've worked in the past few years, I have seen some really ugly stuff that goes beyond just office politics.
Yes I have. There is an oppressive feeling generally. I also find it harder and harder myself to exercise restraint when certain things happen - like the demos burning poppies etc. Small wonder that others have even less restraint. It all feels like it's getting ugly.
Conversely Im watching Remembrance at the Cenotaph and feel nothing but immense pride in Britain honouring the Commonwealth and wish like made this had been our focus the last decades instead of the EU.
Hope this disjointed rambling makes some kind of sense
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