Right up Front, I expect to catch some flack on this one. Good! Let’s talk about it. Also, just so you know, I refuse to talk politics and I don’t see this as political but am definitely willing to kick around facts and challenge differing views.
About the 250-year birthday: Given the mistakes we’ve made along the way, the fact we’ve lasted this long speaks volumes about our ability to recover from, and amend, our mistakes. That’s the most important factor required for a long-lasting civilization/country. Learn from your mistakes, correct them and continue onward.
Also, 250 years is indeed a miracle of sorts. However, when put against the world stage, as a nation, we’re absolute infants. England, who was on the other side of our 1776 thing was founded as a nation in 927 AD. So, it was already 849 years old before we decided to have an intense conversation with them. As far as that goes, they, and most European civilizations, were 565 years old when our entire continent was even discovered! As an infant nation it would be easy for us to be described as an over-achieving youngster. None of that has any bearing on what we’re seeing in the overall reaction of World Cup visitors to the US.
National news media and YouTube are loaded with folks who, in a word, are blown away by what they’re experiencing. This is primarily because of three basic factors, the first of which is the most understandable and important. They can’t believe how their own news media had totally lied about America. Universally, regardless of where the visitors traveled from or where they went when here, they couldn’t believe how friendly everyone was. They got a real kick out of the way virtually everyone they met reached out to help. We’re not the nasty bastards their news media makes us out to be. Not all of us, anyway.
Then there is the discovery of American food, both the types and the huge portions. The English commented the most. The Redhead and I have traveled around England and it’s easy to see why they reacted that way. A hamburger over here is a HAMBURGER. It’s a serious creation. Everything here actually has a taste of its own and it was fun to see things as basic as biscuits and gravy blowing folk’s gastronomic minds.
Most arrived expecting to see our streets dirty with armed gangs roaming them looking for victims. Their media had America as a dangerous, filthy place. God knows, we have sections like that but they are few and far between, because of the size of the country and the size of the cities.
Something I hadn’t thought about was their absolute amazement at the size and opulence of all our stadiums/collisiums. I’m not a sports dude so, their comments coached me to watch a few minutes of some of the matches and they’re right! Damn those things are big! My entire county in Nebraska could be in the stands and not even be noticed.
The deluge of visitors has given rise to a huge number of YouTube videos. Just scan YouTube, and you’ll find lots of videos well worth watching. Okay, I’ll admit, them being visitors they aren’t likely to see the bad side of our country but their comments about Americans as a people wouldn’t change regardless of how deeply they burrowed into the American psyche.
I do, however, feel as if there’s a basic fact that has been missed by almost all of these visitors. When they comment on the personal characteristics of those they’ve met, they are missing a basic fact. Other than the indigenous peoples, there is no such thing as an actual American. Every one of us is a mongrel bred entirely of people similar to those visiting. They don’t realize the “American” is the result of our successful mongrelization of so many different peoples. Even our food, which they all rave about, is bred by the American Experience. Very little is entirely ours. It’s theirs given a little mixing, some spicing and lots of national personalization.
To me, the best thing to come out of the World Cup is the radical effect just being here has had on so many visitors. They’ll become valued proponents of the American Experiment when they go home.
If you’re going to watch only one video, make it this one. It’s a very professionally done examination of the US from a European visitor’s point of view. It’s 22 minutes long, so, pull up a chair, a tall cool one and put your feet up. You’ll enjoy it.
What follows is a handful of videos from an interesting/cool British couple who spent 20 days driving all around the US, Florida to Oregon. Note, this guy isn’t your average English type physically. You’ll see what I mean the instant you see him. There’s a ton of their videos all over YouTube. All are very well done, all giving a British point of view of stuff some of us don’t even know exists and others we take for granted.
They’re asking for our input
What they don’t like about the US.
Parks We all Should See
Bits and pieces: fun stuff like this is all over YouTube. When this one opens you may have to kill YouTube to finish this Thinking Out Loud.
If this kind of stuff doesn’t prove anything else, it proves that a lot of us have our heads up our butts and don’t have a true view of the wonderfulness that is the United States of America. Yeah, we have our differences and there are a lot of things to be corrected but they’re all minor compared to what we share without realizing it. That’s the one thing we’re really good at. Correcting our errors. It may take time but we’ll eventually pull together to make things right.
I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again: Every damn one of us has won the lottery of life because this is our home.
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