Today a friend of mine asked me what I thought about the
American Man they found fighting for the Taliban. My answer is that I am surprised that they have found so few. I would expect that there are more Americans who have taken up their cause.
When I look at America, I can see why it is easy for some people to get lost. It is easy for me to see why some people might be disenchanted with the life that Americans live. There is search for values and meaning that American Culture seems to laugh at. Just look at the ways that
the people from his old neighborhood view him. It is easy for me to see why someone will look for answers in other places.
For the last couple of years I have seen how people can be radicalized and moved away from American society. I say that they can be radicalized because it is easy to make the case that the only change is going to come from revolution. I think that radicalized is a better term then brainwashed. I think that when people think about brainwashed, they see someone is a zombie or not thinking. I think these people have clear value systems. They are just not the value system that most Americans have.
There are lots of places where people can make arguments against American Society. Unless we do something to see these places and fix them who knows what might happen. I think the first place where American is foreign policy. We say that we are the defenders of democracy, but we will let dictates stand if they are friendly to our policy. How many crimes have CIA carried out in our name? How did we let Afghanistan fall into turmoil after they fought a proxy war for us? I can rationalize these things, but it is easy to understand why people in many parts of the world think they are wrong.
The second weakness it our government. There is an old saying that the appearance of a conflict of interest is as bad as a conflict of interest itself. If our government is not a series conflicts of interests, it at least appears that way. People are feeling more and more disconnected from the government all the time. I think it would be easy to exploit that in the mind of many. American Government should stand on the values of great men. Many times it seems it stands on the values of the business world.
The third and maybe greatest weakness is American Consumer Society. The symbols of American Consumer Society are SUVs and Cell Phones. There is not one image that a business will not use to try to sell a product. There is not one product that Americans are not clamoring to buy. I do not want to just blame business for this. I feel that almost every American has fallen into this trap. We buy things to make our lives more fashionable. We are sold lifestyles, beauty, and a sense that we are good people. We tell our daughters that they are not beautiful unless we are perfect, our sons that they have to own everything and ourselves that if you are not having lots of sex you are a loser. We dress our kids in Nikes, hour homes in Ikea, and our lives in consumer debt. We do all these things while schools are falling apart and homeless people sleep in the streets.
I see American life as a series of trade offs. I know that our government is not perfect, but neither is anyone else's. I know that America had to do things in its own interest. I know that things all over the world are not perfect, but they could be worse. I know that people have to solve their own problems. Handouts from the government will only make things worse. I can also see how these facts can be used to turn people away from America.
This might not be the most coherent rant in the world, but it is late and I was tired of these things before I even sat down to write it.
Labels: America, consumerism, convert, government, Islam, John Walker Lindh, Muslim, Taliban
