So, I was at the laundromat again on Friday learning about life. I’m happy we’ll finally be getting our new washer this month, after a taxing but novel summer of informative observations.
I’m actually a bit thankful our last washing machine was such a complete piece of crap. That ‘Made in America’ logo on the side should be designed with far less pride, seems to me.
People-watching at the laundromat, located in the small city nearest us, population less than 19,000, is not like people-watching somewhere like the airport or the train station, or in a big city. There’s no bustling around, no stressed out complaining, no strained glances at watches and clocks.
I found myself thinking repeatedly, “Are these the nicest folk you could ever meet? Or just average folk?”
Because, when watching the media—whether the news or series or movies—one is often led to believe there’s a good deal of multicultural strife in lower income environments in this country.
This last time I was the only white person there, besides the owner. Several women were chatting away in Spanish. One black man, Nigerian I believe, judging by his dress, car and manners, stopped what he was doing twice in order to open the door for me. Another gentlemen, Mexican, offered me his dryer, which was still piping hot with six minutes left on the timer. I happily accepted.
A few small kids were annoying, but that’s to be expected anywhere.
I like to go to the Mexican restaurant across the street afterward. It started off as a taqueria with a line around the building just a few years ago, and has slowly expanded into a real restaurant, a hopping hot spot that seems to have a new addition built every month. It’s run by a very pleasant and hard-working Mexican family and is full of gringos and immigrants alike, often sitting together.
I sometimes go to the grocery store too, also in this fairly diverse neighborhood. I see lots of friendly smiles and neighborly encounters and a generally good mood among folks. Sometimes this is surprising, because I can see that many are quite visibly ill, and a good many more are obviously terminally unhealthy. The line at the pharmacy counter is usually the longest one. They’re actively promoting the flu shot at the moment.
As I wait in the checkout line, and watch, I wonder:
What if they knew our “Smart Grid Space Fence Lockdown Surveillance System Police State Mega-Regions” will be toxic hellholes of farmed humans, by design?!
Remarkably (not), the newer the immigrant the healthier they look. I often find myself wondering, had they known the truth about this country, and not just the daily variety show of propaganda our media exports worldwide, would they still choose to come here?
If they knew the vaccines are toxic and soon to be mandatory nationwide.
If they knew medical experimentation was justified from the highest levels and Disaster Corporatism the new and accepted normal.
If they knew the government and global corporations run everything hand-in-glove, just like a mafia, and the individual is powerless against them.
Would they still covet the ‘American Dream’?
If they saw what I see, what many of us see, actually—that we are a country at war with the world, and with nature, and presumably between classes and races, but most especially within our own minds, our own realities—would they still choose to bloody their hands and souls in our epic global messes?
A Futile Effort to End War and the Violent Insanity of the State https://kurtnimmo.blog/2019/11/01/a-futile-effort-to-end-war-and-the-violent-insanity-of-the-state/
“I began to realize in 1970, as did millions of other eighteen-year-old American males, that the government considered me little more than a dispensable body to be kidnapped and turned into a bullet-stopping slave.”
“The Pentagon devised a new tactic. Instead of drafting middle-class kids, they made “military service” “voluntary,” in other words only the desperately poor—and those brainwashed by lies and “patriotism”—are sucked into the war machine.”
“The American people are irrevocably brainwashed. The state has distracted and divided them into mutually antagonistic groups. Instead of focusing on the US-spawned horror of forever war—Afghanistan, Iraq, Syria—and economic warfare against an ever-growing roster of nations not submitting to neoliberal economic suicide (Venezuela, North Korea, Cuba, Nicaragua), the people are distracted by celebrity pabulum, sports, television shows pushing identity and sexual politics and, recently arrived on the scene, a corrosive and vile partisan war that has since the election of Donald Trump resulted in riots, looting, violence, and death. It is now common to hear people demand the assassination of the president and the incarceration of his wife and children.”
I know a few readers who will likely protest. “Of course they’d still come here! Look where they come from, crazy woman, there’s many dozens of shittier countries out there!”
And you’d be absolutely right in pointing that out.
But, those countries know they’re shitty. That’s the critical difference. They admit it openly. I’ve yet to meet a Nigerian who believes he comes from the greatest country on Earth.
Personally, I’d have a lot more pride in my country if we could be that authentic. Instead of our motto claiming we are: ‘The land of the free and the home of the brave’ we could admit instead we are: ‘The land of illusions and the home of sorcerers.’
It’s the fact that we’re expected here to have pride in our shittiness that I find so unbearably insulting.
Perhaps, instead of The Star Spangled Banner as our country’s marching theme song, we could consider this one, in the spirit of authenticity?
Kensho Homestead 