America the Radical
My apologies for the weeks of silence. Many things have happened since the last post, very few of which will be remembered a year from now, perhaps with two notable exceptions. First, Sarah and I hosted an epic housewarming party, and secondly (but not less important) Barack Obama was elected president.
Having spent a good chunk of this year out of the country, I think I have a pretty good read on what makes America awesome, and what makes it suck. In short, America's awesomeness comes from the spirit of rock 'n roll. America was founded by a bunch of people who didn't have anything to lose and could afford to say, "f**k it, let's not have a king." America does best when things are crappy enough that we can do the right thing without caring about the consequences.
Example: It's 1932, everything's completely f'd up. But FDR's like, "alright, yeah, this sucks, but let's get some radical social programs out there. Maybe that'll make things better, since they clearly can't get any worse." America's at its best when things are at their worst. If we're poor, hell, let's all band together and we'll get through it somehow. We're fundamentally a nation of punks, rebels, and radicals, so as long as we have something crappy to rebel against, we're set.
It's the prosperity that kills us.
Check it out: after eight years of booming Internet stocks, we go ahead and elect (ish?) an unqualified douchebag instead of a well-experienced robot. This was an extremely rebellious (though slightly catastrophic) move. We sure showed that prosperity not to make us rich! And it was kind of rock 'n roll too, like when you vote for the glue-sniffing class clown instead of the nerd who's warning you about the world melting. It made sense.
As for 2004, well again, as much as I hated Bush, he appealed to the rebel spirit of America much better than Kerry, since Bush got to start wars and disagree with the French, while Kerry wasn't even cool enough to dodge the draft. Lame.
We're a nation of long-shots and underdogs. It was inspiring to see a mentally retarded man rise to the highest office in our country... twice. More importantly, Bush got rid of all that terrible prosperity and gave us something new to rebel against... mainly him.
So that's America's great strength: its ability to rebel against crap and other things that suck. Our strength is our ability to say, "f**k it, we're out of old ideas, let's try some new ones." Prosperity messes everything up because we're too worried about keeping what we have that we can't sell the home and cross the country in a covered wagon, or slap some wings on a propeller and try to fly, or put some guys in a tin can and blast them to the moon. We're awesome when we're pushing the envelope and we're really lame when we try to maintain the status quo.
Case in point: the election.
I'm not sure I could say it better than the Onion, but I'll try. Obama was the right guy to elect for so many reasons, but the one that matters to me is that he was new. He was a long-shot and he has a ridiculous name and he got people really freaking excited because things had finally gotten bad enough that people could feel good about saying f**k the establishment, I'm voting for change. Change. It doesn't mean better, but it does mean excitement. Whatever's coming next, we don't know what it is, and that's pretty damn exciting. It's pretty rock 'n roll.
Like a lot of young Californians I know, I'm pretty disappointed about how prop 8 went. You could say that it's ridiculously unfair and discriminatory, and you'd be right. But those important reasons aside, it's also really uncool. How rock 'n roll is it to hold onto an idea of marriage that's several thousand years old? It's not even cool to have last year's iPod, and marriage was never as cool as an iPod.
C'mon guys, we have a new president and for the first time, he's cool. We're cool for electing him. Let's not mess this up by making a lot of prude, uptight decisions about who can legally make out with each other in front of clergy! We are at our radical best as Americans when we have the cajones to shake things up because we can, because we're bored, or because there's a gold rush on the other side of the country. That's rock 'n roll. That's an America I can be proud of.
So how 'bout it America? Get back to your rebellious roots. Live a little. I'll make it easier for you: Canada already legalized same-sex marriage... and weed. I guarantee you their weddings are more fun than ours. Now, America, are you seriously going to sit there and let Canada be more rock 'n roll than you are? I thought not. Get your act together and find something lame to rebel against. And if prosperity comes knocking, take all that money and put it towards a moon colony, 'cuz f**k it, man, let's have some new frontiers. So, can we build a moon colony? Can we listen to the nerdy robot warning us about the world melting? Can we all get high and make out in front of clergy?
Yes we can.
Having spent a good chunk of this year out of the country, I think I have a pretty good read on what makes America awesome, and what makes it suck. In short, America's awesomeness comes from the spirit of rock 'n roll. America was founded by a bunch of people who didn't have anything to lose and could afford to say, "f**k it, let's not have a king." America does best when things are crappy enough that we can do the right thing without caring about the consequences.
Example: It's 1932, everything's completely f'd up. But FDR's like, "alright, yeah, this sucks, but let's get some radical social programs out there. Maybe that'll make things better, since they clearly can't get any worse." America's at its best when things are at their worst. If we're poor, hell, let's all band together and we'll get through it somehow. We're fundamentally a nation of punks, rebels, and radicals, so as long as we have something crappy to rebel against, we're set.
It's the prosperity that kills us.
Check it out: after eight years of booming Internet stocks, we go ahead and elect (ish?) an unqualified douchebag instead of a well-experienced robot. This was an extremely rebellious (though slightly catastrophic) move. We sure showed that prosperity not to make us rich! And it was kind of rock 'n roll too, like when you vote for the glue-sniffing class clown instead of the nerd who's warning you about the world melting. It made sense.
As for 2004, well again, as much as I hated Bush, he appealed to the rebel spirit of America much better than Kerry, since Bush got to start wars and disagree with the French, while Kerry wasn't even cool enough to dodge the draft. Lame.
We're a nation of long-shots and underdogs. It was inspiring to see a mentally retarded man rise to the highest office in our country... twice. More importantly, Bush got rid of all that terrible prosperity and gave us something new to rebel against... mainly him.
So that's America's great strength: its ability to rebel against crap and other things that suck. Our strength is our ability to say, "f**k it, we're out of old ideas, let's try some new ones." Prosperity messes everything up because we're too worried about keeping what we have that we can't sell the home and cross the country in a covered wagon, or slap some wings on a propeller and try to fly, or put some guys in a tin can and blast them to the moon. We're awesome when we're pushing the envelope and we're really lame when we try to maintain the status quo.
Case in point: the election.
I'm not sure I could say it better than the Onion, but I'll try. Obama was the right guy to elect for so many reasons, but the one that matters to me is that he was new. He was a long-shot and he has a ridiculous name and he got people really freaking excited because things had finally gotten bad enough that people could feel good about saying f**k the establishment, I'm voting for change. Change. It doesn't mean better, but it does mean excitement. Whatever's coming next, we don't know what it is, and that's pretty damn exciting. It's pretty rock 'n roll.
Like a lot of young Californians I know, I'm pretty disappointed about how prop 8 went. You could say that it's ridiculously unfair and discriminatory, and you'd be right. But those important reasons aside, it's also really uncool. How rock 'n roll is it to hold onto an idea of marriage that's several thousand years old? It's not even cool to have last year's iPod, and marriage was never as cool as an iPod.
C'mon guys, we have a new president and for the first time, he's cool. We're cool for electing him. Let's not mess this up by making a lot of prude, uptight decisions about who can legally make out with each other in front of clergy! We are at our radical best as Americans when we have the cajones to shake things up because we can, because we're bored, or because there's a gold rush on the other side of the country. That's rock 'n roll. That's an America I can be proud of.
So how 'bout it America? Get back to your rebellious roots. Live a little. I'll make it easier for you: Canada already legalized same-sex marriage... and weed. I guarantee you their weddings are more fun than ours. Now, America, are you seriously going to sit there and let Canada be more rock 'n roll than you are? I thought not. Get your act together and find something lame to rebel against. And if prosperity comes knocking, take all that money and put it towards a moon colony, 'cuz f**k it, man, let's have some new frontiers. So, can we build a moon colony? Can we listen to the nerdy robot warning us about the world melting? Can we all get high and make out in front of clergy?
Yes we can.
Comments
So I'd like to point out that ROCK STARS are also a little, um, inconsistent. We have a particularly hard time finishing what we
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-Sugartits