[Vilcabamba, Ecuador on 8/18/23, as photographed by an American, Jim] In 2013, I received my first email from Jim. Responding to my article about Atlantic City, Jim related his experiences growing up in Jersey. Each year, Jim went with his chicken farmer dad to AC for a poultry convention. There, his dad bought a set of encyclopedias. This enabled Jim and his three siblings to plagiarize for school.
That was a soul destroyingly bleak look at humanity while dropping what crumbs you could - that we're still surrounded by natural beauty and (at least while we're young) still have pure uncomplicated hope for the future.
After reading this I 'liked' it but feel that you should provide an alternative emoji to a heart. Something akin to a man tearing his face off, or a Munchian scream perhaps.
Another great one, Linh...now that you are back in your comfort zone it seems your subconscious isn't distracted by daily survival needs and you are more able to hone your craft to a fine edge. For me it's interesting that Jim places Colombia at the bottom of the barrel...I just happen to be on day 6 of a 28 day sojourn here in Manizales, Colombia and have had more instances of locals going out of their way to be warm and welcoming than I can count on both hands. Also, the coffee is incredible and marlboro golds are 4 bucks a pack.
Spent a few weeks in Cartagena pre-coof, always felt safe and the seafood was excellent, people friendly but soon to be very poor due to the lockdowns. I hear masks and lockdowns are coming back in the Fall. Resist.
For me Cartagena is too hot, I prefer the mountain climate and prefer soaking in volcanic hot springs to flailing around on some beach being sunburnt like an ant under a magnifying glass. Yes so I also hear...sadly here in Colombia I still see people wearing masks, but as time marches on and reality continues being real I feel more will awake and reject, instead of injecting the venom. My girlfriend's aunt here was hospitalized and almost died after her second jab, so it's quite simple to make my case for noncompliance to her.
Tony, we had never been to Colombia before. Yes, Cartagena was really hot but we're from SW Florida, not too much difference. I had a great time there, met a Palestinian restaurant owner and had some terrific conversations with him. I never knew that were so many Palestinians in Latin America, hell - never knew there so many Vietnamese in Prague!
We are all tribal so it makes sense that you like being in Pakse with a lot of other Vietnamese. Only Whites are gullible enough to buy the Jew line that tribalism is evil. After all, Jews may be the most tribal people on the planet.
You raised issues about security in Latin America that the expat bloggers tend to downplay or ignore. Travel writing of any type is about selling dreams not reality. The fact that you are one of the few nomad (?) writers who tries to convey reality is a key reason I follow you.
I never felt at home in America. Having grown up during the Vietnam War, I was sickened by the government and the indifference of the population. Nothing that has happened since has convinced me otherwise. 911 and the woke ideology makes me think I was too much of an optimist about Americans.
Now that I need to go back for awhile I have started looking for a place for my family to live. A rental agent responded and, featured prominently in her email, are her preferred pronouns. It is going to be a very long 4 years.
Page 8, 7th Para. “Keith’s firm conviction, following years of study and research, was that nature had incorporated into the human psyche a prejudice or bias in favour of one’s own kind which channelled primitive man unconsciously into an infinitely slow but continual program of racial improvement.”
-- From the book The Place of Prejudice in Modern Civilization by Sir Arthur Keith
The author, in the book, describes the evolution of peoples and how different races are formed. Re "...nature had incorporated into the human psyche a prejudice...", historically, in ancient times, different tribes excluded peoples from other tribes. As the tribes developed over the eons, within each tribe the superior members would breed with each other, thus improving the tribes over time.
Also, as each isolated tribe developed, differences between the tribes became more and more apparent, and thus different peoples and races were formed.
There have been some studies on in group preference. Only white people don't have it and good whites have out group preference. Thus whites are on track to be the only group planet wide who become minorities in their own countries
Though I generally agree with you about tribal preference, there are other allegiances and affinities. During the last five months in Laos and Thailand, I've had the most meaningful conversations with an Irishman, a Canadian, three Americans, a Brit and an Australian, all white men. Besides sharing a language, we've all traveled a bit, and have seen, first hand, what has happened to the West, so we have much to talk about. Though there are many Vietnamese in Pakse, my conversations with them have been more superficial, so I don't feel as close to them.
I've also had several interesting conversations with Coredo, an Italian. Though his English is imperfect and my Italian garbage, I did spend two years in Tuscany, his home province, plus +2 years in other parts of Europe. I love Italy, Italians and Italian food. Coredo loves Southeast Asia. We have a lot to talk about.
There are always exceptions to every rule but I find expats and Americans seek their own on a personal basis. Usually it a combination of ethnicity, age and class/status. You don't see black doctors hanging out with black security guards.
For all the yammering about diversity being our greatest strength, good whites hang out with other good whites with the same the status level. Good Whites tend to live their lives like they are members of the KKK.
Among tourists it is a little more flexible. However, with expats the same rules generally apply once they settle down. Norwegians hang with Norwegians. Japanese with Japanese. Etc. Some of it is language but there are also cultural factors too.
A good example of how this works is a clique of expats I knew in Bangkok. They would be happy to chat with you and grab a beer. They would like that you are a published writer.
However to be part of their clique there were entrance requirements that of course they would never admit to.
1 you had to be wealthy. They would let you know right away that they had serious money.
2 you had to hate Trump.
3. You had to have a good looking woman or date a lot of women.
You could have 2 of the 3 but 1 was a firm requirement.
Well... Why would anyone want to be part of that clique of idiots? My general impression is that Whites, or at least Anglos in particular, care more about class than race/ethnicity. Language, too (as a class marker - no cockney etc). The upper class would prefer to hobnob with a rich Hindu, Arab or Chinese than with a working-class Englishman. You see that in British politics too. In America it's the same, only they don't talk about class but status, but it's the same.
As I mentioned, Good Whites are the only group with an out group preference. Even then, while they may go to DAVOS style events and mingle with others of the caste independent of races, if you look at their inner circle it is usually just or almost all their race.
The Bangkok group I mentioned were almost all white with one Thai American sidekick. You see that a lot in SF. Upper caste will mingle with other upper caste from various groups and gleefully discriminate against lower caste Whites (even affluent ones) but their inner circle is their group.
"Dissidents" like Chris Hedges are intellectual germaphobes. Dirty ideas and people need not intrude. If you watch the opening to his show, you'll see that he's down with the "blues" of the downtrodden, unless they are anti-semites, rednecks, etc., yaddee yadda. It's not even a good blues song.
Regardless, those last two paragraphs read like poetry. Thank you Linh.
It's 10:40PM here in southwest Florida. Earlier in the evening I was telling my wife about a European woman who was raking it in by showing her body off on "Only Fans". This woman decided to take a vacation to Miami. Her visa was denied, facial recognition and artificial intelligence deemed her a nuisance not to be tolerated. My wife said, "good". I didn't know my wife thought like that. The day after tomorrow we'll go out drinking and I'll repeat this story to three or four friends and they'll also say, "good".
Money and passport, I've both, could be in Pakse within 5 or 6 days. I won't be though. Jomtien, Prague, Savanahaket, Nakhon Phanom are all within my reach within days, all places I'd rather be.
Here I am. A more longish post by Linh makes my evening pleasant. Cheers
"She found there was easy money in taking her clothes off at adult clubs outside Gainesville.
One night a guy she had met (...) tied her up, raped and tortured her to death"
The money's not that "easy" when you consider all the negatives, including such risks...
As for the risk of violent crime in Latin America, I think it depends on the country. Ecuador and most of Central America is pretty bad. Argentina, Chile and Uruguay are a bit safer, although they do have pickpockets and occasional home invasions are possible. Brazil, it depends on the region, or even the neighbourhood where you live. You may have to have private security.
We lived in Kent in the late 70’s and early 80’s and it was fantastic. We went back for a visit last year and it was unrecognizable-everything looked uber modern and sprawling. It’s like it the old Kent never existed. The only thing that hasn’t changed is Ray’s bar. But then again the world of the 70’s was 50 years ago.
Here in the US it is almost time for the most American of all things - football season. It is the most complete metaphor for America that exists. Most of the participants are expected to be and are celebrated for being as violent as possible until the authorities - I mean referees - call a halt to it. It is incredibly equipment-intensive and absurdly expensive to play. There are certain specialists, QBs and kickers, who are mostly protected from the violence. The participants are obscenely paid, yet after football many go broke. Some, like the late Mike Webster, lose their minds and die as relatively young men. AND OF COURSE it is increasingly openly corrupt, without even a pretense that what is presented is a legitimate event. Did I mention it is a metaphor for the USA?
Of the 225 countries that watched the Super Bowl, nearly none play American football. Not familiar with the rules of the game, they were merely staring at a spectacle. Of all American sports, football is one that has not spread overseas. It doesn’t translate well. The amount of equipment required excludes poor countries, which are most of the world, but there is perhaps much in its nature that precludes universal attraction. It is extremely violent. On every play, someone is knocked down, but he doesn’t writhe and grimace, as in soccer, but gets right back up. With his padded shoulders and helmeted head, a football player appears more than human. He is a machine. A robot. A mascot for NFL broadcasts is a hulking, dancing robot. With his thick neck and imperviousness to pain, a football player is the opposite of your weepy feely, pencil-necked intellectual. He is no wuss.
The objective of every football play is to gain real estate. For tactical reasons, a soccer player often passes a ball backward, sometimes even to his own goalie, but in football, there is only the forward thrust. In fact, a backward pass is illegal. Gaining yards is so important that it defines the success of every play, and of every player who touches the ball. A running back had a successful day if he gained 100 yards, even if he never scored and his team lost. In no other sports are statistics kept of yards gained. A soccer or basketball player can dribble the length of the field or court without tallying anything, but in American football, each yard must be counted.
This nearly continent-sized country has always defined itself by rapidly expanding, by gaining yards and miles. Settle the coast, then foray inland. Move the natives out of the way. Get rid of them. Kill them. Half of Mexico was swallowed up, then Puerto Rico, Hawaii, Guam, the Philippines, on and on, until now, America has at least 700 military bases in 130 countries. That’s a lot of yards gained. Granted, there are no people that have not engaged in territorial warfare with their neighbors, but the relentless reach of the United States is unprecedented.
Much more than land, America invades minds. There is scarcely a brain alive that’s not constantly titillated and harassed by American culture. Worldwide, people wear hats and shirts with American words and slogans they don’t understand. They listen to American lyrics and babble English words, even to themselves. In Vietnam not too long ago, a woman asked if I liked the song, “Aleet Beeper.” What she meant was “Careless Whisper.” Whatever its title and whatever it meant, she liked that song. Also in Vietnam, I saw “POLO” stickered onto a Japanese motorbike. This man had Americanized his modest rice cooker, since America is glamorous and cool, much more so than Japan or anywhere else, for that matter.
Humans are warm but machines are cool. Notice the ubiquity of “cool” to denote anything positive in American English. Americans aspire to become hard, tough, and efficient machines that feel no pain. More specifically, they identify with their car, that carapace that enwraps them daily and gives them personality and status. Spending more time with his car than anything or anyone else, the American’s best friend is his automobile. Nowadays, it can even speak and tell him where to go. Year in and year out, car commercials dominate the Super Bowl. Becoming anthropomorphic, they can drive themselves and chat to each other. One can say that the main objective of each Super Bowl is to sell more wheels.
Clueless of the rules, foreigners still tune in to the Super Bowl, since empire exudes not just power, but a kind of sexual allure. The alpha male also demands vigilant attention. He is dangerous and you can’t hide from him. By his cold-blooded calculations or whims, a person in the remotest place may just die in his sleep, killed by a plane or drone, even without knowing why. A recent report revealed that only eight percent of Afghan men had even heard of the attacks on 9/11 of 2001, America’s pretext for invading their country.
Even more than usual, war lurked behind this Super Bowl. Before Christina Aguilera botched “The Star-Spangled Banner,” Lea Michele sang “America the Beautiful,” so there were two national anthems, so to speak. Troops with flags were arrayed behind these singers. As Aguilera fluffed and mumbled, we caught a glimpse of a grinning George W. Bush. Our war-criminal-in-chief would appear again later, as would Condi Rice. After Aguilera’s last note, military jets roared overhead. During the game, we were suddenly introduced to Sergeant Salvatore Giunta, a decorated veteran of our invasion of Afghanistan. He stood with other soldiers beyond the end zone, waving. As has become customary, the announcers thanked all of “our troops” worldwide “for all that they do.” Earlier, there was a shot of American soldiers watching the Super Bowl in Afghanistan.
America is beautiful, but so is every other country. None can match her in mass media allure, however, in collective hypnosis. In a 1997 article for the US Army War College, Major Ralph Peters sums up America’s cultural edge, “Hollywood goes where Harvard never penetrated, and the foreigner, unable to touch the reality of America, is touched by America's irresponsible fantasies of itself; he sees a devilishly enchanting, bluntly sexual, terrifying world from which he is excluded, a world of wealth he can judge only in terms of his own poverty.” And, “The films most despised by the intellectual elite--those that feature extreme violence and to-the-victors-the-spoils sex--are our most popular cultural weapon, bought or bootlegged nearly everywhere. American action films, often in dreadful copies, are available from the Upper Amazon to Mandalay. They are even more popular than our music, because they are easier to understand.”
America is seductive. In fact, the further one is from America, geographically, culturally or economically, the more alluring she can become. Without an actual experience of her, America is pure fantasy, a fabulous rumor.
One of history’s oddest ironies is the name Mỹ Lai, which means “half-American” in Vietnamese. Mỹ is “American.” Lai is “of mixed race.” If a person is “Mỹ lai,” he is half-American. Further, Mỹ in Vietnamese also means beautiful. In colloquial Vietnamese, America is the beautiful country, and Americans, beautiful people. In the half-American village, of a country that called America “beautiful,” American troops killed around 500 unarmed civilians on March 16th of 1968. Nearly all were women, children and the elderly. America seduced, then killed. During one of Israel’s episodic massacres of Arabs—there have been so many, I can no longer remember which one—I saw a photo of a dead child wrapped in a Mickey Mouse blanket. Murdered by an American bomb, she would be buried with her beloved American icon. An American talking rat accompanied her to eternity.
Watching the Super Bowl, Americans and foreigners alike can come away with these clear messages: Fun is not free. We must kill constantly so cars can be sold. We are a virile and vital nation, at least on television. The seats at this spectacle are way out of reach to you, even those who dwell right here, in the cartoony belly of the beast, but your seats at home are free, as long as they haven’t been bombed. Lastly, you can never be like us, the beautiful creatures you see on our shows and movies, but you’re free to stare, stare and stare.
Linh, When you told the Vietnamese guy in Pakse who wanted to work in a relative's USA restaurant the truth, as always, you're a guy who knows what he's talking about. A guy from El Salvador can hack it, he'll work 7 days a week washing dishes till he can afford a Toyota Tacoma, no self-respecting El Salvadorian chick will marry him until he reaches that goal.
In my last reply I mentioned Prague in addition to several SE Asian locales. Why - well, an American can only be free if they are someplace where they cannot understand the language, the constant rocket attacks on his mind will cease, he will be at peace until he goes home.
I've read quite a bit of Graham's writings in the past week. The consensus here is that he's right about everything except for the war. I'm sure I've told him to get out while he can, and he's told us USAians the same thing. He's more right than I am.
Hi everyone,
I just found some interesting images of Bar Caballo Blanco, Jim's old trough in Puriscal, Costa Rica:
http://linhdinhphotos.blogspot.com/2023/08/as-preview-of-next-article-already-at.html
I can see why Jim lived in that area for so long.
Linh
That was a soul destroyingly bleak look at humanity while dropping what crumbs you could - that we're still surrounded by natural beauty and (at least while we're young) still have pure uncomplicated hope for the future.
After reading this I 'liked' it but feel that you should provide an alternative emoji to a heart. Something akin to a man tearing his face off, or a Munchian scream perhaps.
Another great one, Linh...now that you are back in your comfort zone it seems your subconscious isn't distracted by daily survival needs and you are more able to hone your craft to a fine edge. For me it's interesting that Jim places Colombia at the bottom of the barrel...I just happen to be on day 6 of a 28 day sojourn here in Manizales, Colombia and have had more instances of locals going out of their way to be warm and welcoming than I can count on both hands. Also, the coffee is incredible and marlboro golds are 4 bucks a pack.
Spent a few weeks in Cartagena pre-coof, always felt safe and the seafood was excellent, people friendly but soon to be very poor due to the lockdowns. I hear masks and lockdowns are coming back in the Fall. Resist.
For me Cartagena is too hot, I prefer the mountain climate and prefer soaking in volcanic hot springs to flailing around on some beach being sunburnt like an ant under a magnifying glass. Yes so I also hear...sadly here in Colombia I still see people wearing masks, but as time marches on and reality continues being real I feel more will awake and reject, instead of injecting the venom. My girlfriend's aunt here was hospitalized and almost died after her second jab, so it's quite simple to make my case for noncompliance to her.
Tony, we had never been to Colombia before. Yes, Cartagena was really hot but we're from SW Florida, not too much difference. I had a great time there, met a Palestinian restaurant owner and had some terrific conversations with him. I never knew that were so many Palestinians in Latin America, hell - never knew there so many Vietnamese in Prague!
Si señor, as a Floridian you def have an advantage over this here Canadian in heat tolerance jajaa
We are all tribal so it makes sense that you like being in Pakse with a lot of other Vietnamese. Only Whites are gullible enough to buy the Jew line that tribalism is evil. After all, Jews may be the most tribal people on the planet.
You raised issues about security in Latin America that the expat bloggers tend to downplay or ignore. Travel writing of any type is about selling dreams not reality. The fact that you are one of the few nomad (?) writers who tries to convey reality is a key reason I follow you.
I never felt at home in America. Having grown up during the Vietnam War, I was sickened by the government and the indifference of the population. Nothing that has happened since has convinced me otherwise. 911 and the woke ideology makes me think I was too much of an optimist about Americans.
Now that I need to go back for awhile I have started looking for a place for my family to live. A rental agent responded and, featured prominently in her email, are her preferred pronouns. It is going to be a very long 4 years.
Page 8, 7th Para. “Keith’s firm conviction, following years of study and research, was that nature had incorporated into the human psyche a prejudice or bias in favour of one’s own kind which channelled primitive man unconsciously into an infinitely slow but continual program of racial improvement.”
-- From the book The Place of Prejudice in Modern Civilization by Sir Arthur Keith
Further comment on the book:
The author, in the book, describes the evolution of peoples and how different races are formed. Re "...nature had incorporated into the human psyche a prejudice...", historically, in ancient times, different tribes excluded peoples from other tribes. As the tribes developed over the eons, within each tribe the superior members would breed with each other, thus improving the tribes over time.
Also, as each isolated tribe developed, differences between the tribes became more and more apparent, and thus different peoples and races were formed.
There have been some studies on in group preference. Only white people don't have it and good whites have out group preference. Thus whites are on track to be the only group planet wide who become minorities in their own countries
Hi Al and Elaine,
Though I generally agree with you about tribal preference, there are other allegiances and affinities. During the last five months in Laos and Thailand, I've had the most meaningful conversations with an Irishman, a Canadian, three Americans, a Brit and an Australian, all white men. Besides sharing a language, we've all traveled a bit, and have seen, first hand, what has happened to the West, so we have much to talk about. Though there are many Vietnamese in Pakse, my conversations with them have been more superficial, so I don't feel as close to them.
I've also had several interesting conversations with Coredo, an Italian. Though his English is imperfect and my Italian garbage, I did spend two years in Tuscany, his home province, plus +2 years in other parts of Europe. I love Italy, Italians and Italian food. Coredo loves Southeast Asia. We have a lot to talk about.
Linh
There are always exceptions to every rule but I find expats and Americans seek their own on a personal basis. Usually it a combination of ethnicity, age and class/status. You don't see black doctors hanging out with black security guards.
For all the yammering about diversity being our greatest strength, good whites hang out with other good whites with the same the status level. Good Whites tend to live their lives like they are members of the KKK.
Among tourists it is a little more flexible. However, with expats the same rules generally apply once they settle down. Norwegians hang with Norwegians. Japanese with Japanese. Etc. Some of it is language but there are also cultural factors too.
A good example of how this works is a clique of expats I knew in Bangkok. They would be happy to chat with you and grab a beer. They would like that you are a published writer.
However to be part of their clique there were entrance requirements that of course they would never admit to.
1 you had to be wealthy. They would let you know right away that they had serious money.
2 you had to hate Trump.
3. You had to have a good looking woman or date a lot of women.
You could have 2 of the 3 but 1 was a firm requirement.
I really don't believe this.
You must have lived a sheltered life
Didnt someone once say comparisons are odious?
Well... Why would anyone want to be part of that clique of idiots? My general impression is that Whites, or at least Anglos in particular, care more about class than race/ethnicity. Language, too (as a class marker - no cockney etc). The upper class would prefer to hobnob with a rich Hindu, Arab or Chinese than with a working-class Englishman. You see that in British politics too. In America it's the same, only they don't talk about class but status, but it's the same.
As I mentioned, Good Whites are the only group with an out group preference. Even then, while they may go to DAVOS style events and mingle with others of the caste independent of races, if you look at their inner circle it is usually just or almost all their race.
The Bangkok group I mentioned were almost all white with one Thai American sidekick. You see that a lot in SF. Upper caste will mingle with other upper caste from various groups and gleefully discriminate against lower caste Whites (even affluent ones) but their inner circle is their group.
"Dissidents" like Chris Hedges are intellectual germaphobes. Dirty ideas and people need not intrude. If you watch the opening to his show, you'll see that he's down with the "blues" of the downtrodden, unless they are anti-semites, rednecks, etc., yaddee yadda. It's not even a good blues song.
Regardless, those last two paragraphs read like poetry. Thank you Linh.
An exciting read, sad and powerful.
It's 10:40PM here in southwest Florida. Earlier in the evening I was telling my wife about a European woman who was raking it in by showing her body off on "Only Fans". This woman decided to take a vacation to Miami. Her visa was denied, facial recognition and artificial intelligence deemed her a nuisance not to be tolerated. My wife said, "good". I didn't know my wife thought like that. The day after tomorrow we'll go out drinking and I'll repeat this story to three or four friends and they'll also say, "good".
Money and passport, I've both, could be in Pakse within 5 or 6 days. I won't be though. Jomtien, Prague, Savanahaket, Nakhon Phanom are all within my reach within days, all places I'd rather be.
Here I am. A more longish post by Linh makes my evening pleasant. Cheers
"She found there was easy money in taking her clothes off at adult clubs outside Gainesville.
One night a guy she had met (...) tied her up, raped and tortured her to death"
The money's not that "easy" when you consider all the negatives, including such risks...
As for the risk of violent crime in Latin America, I think it depends on the country. Ecuador and most of Central America is pretty bad. Argentina, Chile and Uruguay are a bit safer, although they do have pickpockets and occasional home invasions are possible. Brazil, it depends on the region, or even the neighbourhood where you live. You may have to have private security.
Golden.
You’re an astute observer of the world scene.
We lived in Kent in the late 70’s and early 80’s and it was fantastic. We went back for a visit last year and it was unrecognizable-everything looked uber modern and sprawling. It’s like it the old Kent never existed. The only thing that hasn’t changed is Ray’s bar. But then again the world of the 70’s was 50 years ago.
Here in the US it is almost time for the most American of all things - football season. It is the most complete metaphor for America that exists. Most of the participants are expected to be and are celebrated for being as violent as possible until the authorities - I mean referees - call a halt to it. It is incredibly equipment-intensive and absurdly expensive to play. There are certain specialists, QBs and kickers, who are mostly protected from the violence. The participants are obscenely paid, yet after football many go broke. Some, like the late Mike Webster, lose their minds and die as relatively young men. AND OF COURSE it is increasingly openly corrupt, without even a pretense that what is presented is a legitimate event. Did I mention it is a metaphor for the USA?
Hi Charles,
Here's my 2011 piece on football, "Super Bowl Musings":
https://linhdinhphotos.blogspot.com/2011/02/super-bowl-musings.html
Of the 225 countries that watched the Super Bowl, nearly none play American football. Not familiar with the rules of the game, they were merely staring at a spectacle. Of all American sports, football is one that has not spread overseas. It doesn’t translate well. The amount of equipment required excludes poor countries, which are most of the world, but there is perhaps much in its nature that precludes universal attraction. It is extremely violent. On every play, someone is knocked down, but he doesn’t writhe and grimace, as in soccer, but gets right back up. With his padded shoulders and helmeted head, a football player appears more than human. He is a machine. A robot. A mascot for NFL broadcasts is a hulking, dancing robot. With his thick neck and imperviousness to pain, a football player is the opposite of your weepy feely, pencil-necked intellectual. He is no wuss.
The objective of every football play is to gain real estate. For tactical reasons, a soccer player often passes a ball backward, sometimes even to his own goalie, but in football, there is only the forward thrust. In fact, a backward pass is illegal. Gaining yards is so important that it defines the success of every play, and of every player who touches the ball. A running back had a successful day if he gained 100 yards, even if he never scored and his team lost. In no other sports are statistics kept of yards gained. A soccer or basketball player can dribble the length of the field or court without tallying anything, but in American football, each yard must be counted.
This nearly continent-sized country has always defined itself by rapidly expanding, by gaining yards and miles. Settle the coast, then foray inland. Move the natives out of the way. Get rid of them. Kill them. Half of Mexico was swallowed up, then Puerto Rico, Hawaii, Guam, the Philippines, on and on, until now, America has at least 700 military bases in 130 countries. That’s a lot of yards gained. Granted, there are no people that have not engaged in territorial warfare with their neighbors, but the relentless reach of the United States is unprecedented.
Much more than land, America invades minds. There is scarcely a brain alive that’s not constantly titillated and harassed by American culture. Worldwide, people wear hats and shirts with American words and slogans they don’t understand. They listen to American lyrics and babble English words, even to themselves. In Vietnam not too long ago, a woman asked if I liked the song, “Aleet Beeper.” What she meant was “Careless Whisper.” Whatever its title and whatever it meant, she liked that song. Also in Vietnam, I saw “POLO” stickered onto a Japanese motorbike. This man had Americanized his modest rice cooker, since America is glamorous and cool, much more so than Japan or anywhere else, for that matter.
Humans are warm but machines are cool. Notice the ubiquity of “cool” to denote anything positive in American English. Americans aspire to become hard, tough, and efficient machines that feel no pain. More specifically, they identify with their car, that carapace that enwraps them daily and gives them personality and status. Spending more time with his car than anything or anyone else, the American’s best friend is his automobile. Nowadays, it can even speak and tell him where to go. Year in and year out, car commercials dominate the Super Bowl. Becoming anthropomorphic, they can drive themselves and chat to each other. One can say that the main objective of each Super Bowl is to sell more wheels.
[more below]
Clueless of the rules, foreigners still tune in to the Super Bowl, since empire exudes not just power, but a kind of sexual allure. The alpha male also demands vigilant attention. He is dangerous and you can’t hide from him. By his cold-blooded calculations or whims, a person in the remotest place may just die in his sleep, killed by a plane or drone, even without knowing why. A recent report revealed that only eight percent of Afghan men had even heard of the attacks on 9/11 of 2001, America’s pretext for invading their country.
Even more than usual, war lurked behind this Super Bowl. Before Christina Aguilera botched “The Star-Spangled Banner,” Lea Michele sang “America the Beautiful,” so there were two national anthems, so to speak. Troops with flags were arrayed behind these singers. As Aguilera fluffed and mumbled, we caught a glimpse of a grinning George W. Bush. Our war-criminal-in-chief would appear again later, as would Condi Rice. After Aguilera’s last note, military jets roared overhead. During the game, we were suddenly introduced to Sergeant Salvatore Giunta, a decorated veteran of our invasion of Afghanistan. He stood with other soldiers beyond the end zone, waving. As has become customary, the announcers thanked all of “our troops” worldwide “for all that they do.” Earlier, there was a shot of American soldiers watching the Super Bowl in Afghanistan.
America is beautiful, but so is every other country. None can match her in mass media allure, however, in collective hypnosis. In a 1997 article for the US Army War College, Major Ralph Peters sums up America’s cultural edge, “Hollywood goes where Harvard never penetrated, and the foreigner, unable to touch the reality of America, is touched by America's irresponsible fantasies of itself; he sees a devilishly enchanting, bluntly sexual, terrifying world from which he is excluded, a world of wealth he can judge only in terms of his own poverty.” And, “The films most despised by the intellectual elite--those that feature extreme violence and to-the-victors-the-spoils sex--are our most popular cultural weapon, bought or bootlegged nearly everywhere. American action films, often in dreadful copies, are available from the Upper Amazon to Mandalay. They are even more popular than our music, because they are easier to understand.”
America is seductive. In fact, the further one is from America, geographically, culturally or economically, the more alluring she can become. Without an actual experience of her, America is pure fantasy, a fabulous rumor.
One of history’s oddest ironies is the name Mỹ Lai, which means “half-American” in Vietnamese. Mỹ is “American.” Lai is “of mixed race.” If a person is “Mỹ lai,” he is half-American. Further, Mỹ in Vietnamese also means beautiful. In colloquial Vietnamese, America is the beautiful country, and Americans, beautiful people. In the half-American village, of a country that called America “beautiful,” American troops killed around 500 unarmed civilians on March 16th of 1968. Nearly all were women, children and the elderly. America seduced, then killed. During one of Israel’s episodic massacres of Arabs—there have been so many, I can no longer remember which one—I saw a photo of a dead child wrapped in a Mickey Mouse blanket. Murdered by an American bomb, she would be buried with her beloved American icon. An American talking rat accompanied her to eternity.
Watching the Super Bowl, Americans and foreigners alike can come away with these clear messages: Fun is not free. We must kill constantly so cars can be sold. We are a virile and vital nation, at least on television. The seats at this spectacle are way out of reach to you, even those who dwell right here, in the cartoony belly of the beast, but your seats at home are free, as long as they haven’t been bombed. Lastly, you can never be like us, the beautiful creatures you see on our shows and movies, but you’re free to stare, stare and stare.
Linh, When you told the Vietnamese guy in Pakse who wanted to work in a relative's USA restaurant the truth, as always, you're a guy who knows what he's talking about. A guy from El Salvador can hack it, he'll work 7 days a week washing dishes till he can afford a Toyota Tacoma, no self-respecting El Salvadorian chick will marry him until he reaches that goal.
In my last reply I mentioned Prague in addition to several SE Asian locales. Why - well, an American can only be free if they are someplace where they cannot understand the language, the constant rocket attacks on his mind will cease, he will be at peace until he goes home.
I've read quite a bit of Graham's writings in the past week. The consensus here is that he's right about everything except for the war. I'm sure I've told him to get out while he can, and he's told us USAians the same thing. He's more right than I am.
Thank you for posting this. I would not have known about it otherwise.