Consider this one the next time Sean Hannity tells a caller (or a caller tells him) "You're a great American." Over at the Daily Kos, a poor, confused liberal has decided that a "good American" is apparently some cross between the Tea Party and the cast of MTV's "Jersey Shore." The diarist Dr. Zombie (or to use his byline, "xxdr zombiexx") rains rhetorical fire on the purveyors of patriotism and/or American exceptionalism.
And he has a thing about white men, that America is about whiteness and fat white men exploiting the health care system:
I may be white.
I may have been born in America to white Americans who were born to white Americans who were born to white Americans who were born here and one Native American....who was born here.
Despite all that whiteness and all that nativity.... I have failed.
I am not a very good American....
Then, the Jersey Shore video: "This is how we are supposed to be. Shallow, uneducated, materialistic, drunk. Did I say shallow already?..." It's never considered that "whiteness" doesn't exactly match with tanning enthusiasts like Snooki. Then, after a Tea Party video, he argues about his superiority to the stupid American masses:
I just can't be like these people.
I am unsure why - all I know is that I don't fit in and haven't for some time. I like healthcare and think everybody should have it and that a few fat white old men should not get obscenely huge checks everyday for it.
I have failed to fit in so far as I can discern from the media messages and rightwing blather that I cannot evade once I leave my unAmerican little home. When I venture out into the World I am bathed in this capitalist propaganda of BUY - CONSUME - CONFORM.
You are expected to be born, to have your creative spark dimmed and stunted through our public school system, be able to work endlessly for shiny things you don't need on credit you cannot afford and to not ask questions about the world around you.
I'm 50, nearly 51 years old and so far as I can tell, I am in good health. Old and healthy aren't really desirable in a for-profit country like America. Hurry up and die fast is the Amerrican thing to do.
I am supposed to be sitting in a chair, awaiting my demise, taking 50-some different medications to control all my remaining bodily functions, at some exorbitant charge each month, profiting some fat white guy in a massive mansion.
This is how single-payer socialists talk about our country. As if that's not silly enough, then it's conservatives would find it "eco-terrorism" to like the outdoors, and so on:
I used to hike and camp - that's unAmerican. It's eco-terrorism. I didn't spend too much money while I was camping. I walked to improve my health and I was entertained for free. I reveled in the cheap showiness of Nature. I slept outside....ON PUBLIC LAND!! Paid for by TAXES!!
I am not a good American.
I don't own a gun. Not yet at least - thinking about getting a couple small shotguns for home defense. Not owning a gun is apparently unAmerican, given that our country was built on God, guts and them. But right now - no guns. Unarmed is Unamerican.
Speaking of God, I'm not a good American because I am not a Christian. I mean, I grew up indoctrinated with that ideology but I never go to church. I feel I benefited from education and that evolutionary science explains more about the world I see than most of the rainbow of flavors of modern Christianity.
Not a good American.
Like I said above, I am white, but that has done me only a little good over my life - some for sure, but less and less over time I think. I insist on being myself and having long hair. I won't wear a tie until I am groveling for employment. I play loud guitar, I smoke mara-ju-wanna and cannot produce pure, clean American urine.
I am a terrible American.
And so on. And so on. You get the picture. Of course, he boasts "I help the poor: America HATES the poor, it hates helping them and currently Americans are working hard, at least some of the most American of them, to eliminate our big poor-people-helping government."
