[ By: Howard Fineman ]
You can still buy an American newspaper at the kiosk in Rome’s Piazza Colonna, but you have to ask the lady behind the counter. She turns from the window, paws through a stack on the floor, and produces an International Herald Tribune, holding it at arm’s length like a day-old fish. It’s the same availability and tone in Venice, the Greek islands, and Istanbul. The implicit question in the transaction is always the same: why would you want to read that thing about that place at this time?

And when you read about America in European newspapers, what you are likely to find is a tone bordering on pity. The U.S. is depicted as a fraying empire of obesity, ignorance, debt, gridlock, stagnation, and mindless war. Sure, the iPad is cool, but it is evidence of what America was, not what it will be again. The stories are not angry, accusatory, or even ideological. It’s worse: they are condescendingly elegiac.

European disdain for the United States is centuries old, of course. But over the course of decades of traveling in the U.K. and on the continent, I have never gotten the sense that I got on a recently completed three-week trip to Italy, Greece, Turkey, and the Black Sea. America is no longer admired, imitated, or feared. We remain–for now–a safe haven for dollars (of which there are too many in the world). But we increasingly are seen less as a model or as an empire than as a cautionary tale of national neglect and decline.

Some Europeans can’t quite hide their schadenfruede. The British–whose publications and personalities are increasingly (and annoyingly) influential in the colony they lost 227 years ago–are global leaders in condescension (think Simon Cowell). But for America they add a special twist of bitter lemon to their analyses. It’s the triumph of the doddering older brother who no longer has to be grateful to his junior. Memories fade, and the Brits no longer feel they have to be kind out of homage to our having saved them from Hitler.

[ How Charisma Changed the World ]

A couple of examples from the genre. Writing in the Guardian, Timothy Garton Ash sees a Third World shabbiness when he visits the United States. “Every time I come back to the United States,” the Oxford don writes, “the airports, the roads, the public spaces look more tattered, battered, old-fashioned. Modernity is no longer self-evidently here.”

Edward Luce, a brilliant and diligent reporter for the Financial Times, surveyed the American landscape and came up with a mournful portrait that echoes, in equal measure, Diane Arbus, Walker Evans, and Robert Altman. Citing incontrovertibly bleak statistics about the struggles of middle-class Americans, and the growing disparity between the really rich and everyone else, he concludes that the U.S. is losing its essential character: it is no longer the land of opportunity and upward mobility; no longer the place where the future will surely be better, and more prosperous, than the past. Luce rues that a middle-class home is crowded–only 700 square feet–and “cluttered with chintzy memorabilia” and heartbreakingly defiant messages on refrigerator magnets. He ends the long piece with the scene of a much-beloved autistic son in a struggling family. The lad loves to sing, and launches into a “flawless rendition” of “The Impossible Dream” from Man of La Mancha. And that, in the author’s view, is evidently America today: an impossible dream.

And why, you might ask, does much of the rest of the world see us this way? I have a few suggestions:

The post-post-9/11 world. After an initial burst of sympathy, the world has lost patience and stomach for the “war” we launched against Al Qaeda and its allies. It’s cost the U.S. $2 trillion to $3 trillion or more, but Europe doesn’t agree with the premise or, even if it does, doesn’t want to pay for the cost. It would rather look away from our struggle, and, increasingly, would rather blame us than Al Qaeda.

The euro. In spite of all the talk about the euro’s demise, and the problems of Greece and Spain and Italy, the currency is surviving, as is the economic union it represents. The euro is back up.

Asia and Arabs. Turkey is turning east, both for investment money from the Gulf and for construction projects (the Turks are master builders) in Asia. As the U.S., burdened with mounting debt and structural political and economic sclerosis, is facing the possibility of a double-dip recession, most of the BRICs (and I would add Turkey) are moving ahead.

Obama fatigue. I talked to numerous businesspeople and others in Europe who had lost the awe they had–briefly–that we had elected an African-American, and a cool global guy at that. They are aware that he has lost his popularity in the United States, and, even though he managed to enact some massive legislation–on health care, stimulus, and finance services–they increasingly view him as ineffectual. “He’s hollow,” said one leading businessman in Istanbul.

World Cup. Three of the four FIFA finalists were from Europe. Landon Donovan, are you listening?

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George W. Bush was very careful not to demonize Islam wholesale, in the wake of 9/11. President Bush, the LIAR he was/is — maintained steadfastly that the war was against al-Qaeda and terrorism committed by a small group of murderers using Islam as a shield.

After his departure, the right-wing hate goons are roaming America — freeloading vicious anti-Muslim venom with impunity. Anyone who dares oppose these hate-criminals is labeled an apologist for terrorism.

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   Columnist – John Sammon
Obama is doing a new surge in Afghanistan that is set for this summer and that in the best military logic was announced several months ago allowing the Taliban to get ready for it and dig in. In war you always want to tell your enemy where and when you plan to strike and give them plenty of time to get ready.

The scenario, what will happen, is so predictable, it reads like a movie script. The Americans will project massive fire power on a tiny, impoverished foe. The Taliban will fight hard for a time for the purposes of show and cause and receive casualties, then withdraw to the hills in the face of superior technology and firepower, to remote areas, to the hills.

To places where they are dispersed and can’t be pried out. They will hunker down and wait.

Americans will occupy ground and act like we’re winning, when in reality, we don’t intend (we say) to occupy that ground permanently. In fact, in a statement that indicates the president has been smoking some of those poppies Afghanistan is famous for, Obama even said withdrawal of American troops would commence next year.

Let me get this straight. After eight years of struggle, in one operation we are going to be victorious and withdraw in a matter of 13 months? That easy? That simple?

All that we know for certain is that 5,000 more American lives are to be lost in a wretched mis-exercise of American power occupying land in the old World War II style against an insurgency that can move about and reshape itself. It’s all the unlearned lessons of Vietnam rolled up into one.

Rather than try something novel like go for the root of the problem like putting more pressure on Pakistan where bombers are trained and take shelter, or put more pressure on countries like Saudi Arabia where 9-11 originated. Instead, we’re going to kill thousands of more Afghans, many of who had nothing to do with any anti-Americanism and whose only crime was they couldn’t get out of the way of the fighting.

It’s a question of wrong priorities. America refuses to take leadership on doing something about the impending death of our oceans, but is determined to conquer ground in a re-staging of World War II so we can beat our chest like a good old-fashioned imperialist and claim we defeated ragged insurgents. The same old solution to new problems.

Guess what? A political settlement of some kind is inevitable. We can’t destroy the Taliban root and branch so they don’t exist. They are a factor to be dealt with in Afghanistan and will continue to be so. We can’t face the truth. Here’s the hopeless tragedy of it. American soldiers, 5,000 of them, and thousands of Afghans including women and children, are going to die despite the political settlement that will come in the future, but too late for them.

Why? To prove a point? To be victorious?

If you ask the president what his exact goal is with this new ground offensive he’ll make a vague statement. HE DOESN’T KNOW!

The 5,000 died for nothing.

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   By: Roberto Dr. Cintli Rodriguez
TUCSON HIGH SCHOOL: As I prepare to speak to an innovative class here about Indigenous philosophies, the students begin their class in the following manner:

In Lak Ech – Tu eres mi otro yo – You are my other self. I am you and you are me. If I hurt you, I hurt myself. If I hate you, I hate myself. If I love and respect you, I love and respect myself.

Students here, part of Tucson Unified School District’s highly successful Mexican American Studies (MAS) K-12 program (the largest in the nation), are taught this and other Indigenous concepts, including other ways of measuring time (Aztec & Maya calendars). Not coincidentally, academically, MAS students – many of who were doing poorly prior to entering this program – consistently outperform their peers, and it is virtually a college-bound factory.

State capitol, Phoenix, Arizona: 518 years after Columbus initiated the theft of a continent, Arizona’s state superintendent of schools, Tom Horne has just declared, via the passage of HB 2281, that Indigenous peoples and Indigenous knowledge are [still] outside of Western Civilization.

In his relentless campaign against Ethnic Studies, the would-be governor has just engineered the passage of a new draconian state law that seeks to ban the teaching of ethnic studies [by withdrawing its funding]. This is the same state that recently passed the racial profiling SB 1070 law; the primary targets would be Mexicans and Central Americans with Indigenous features, suspected of being “illegal aliens.”

Despite the success of the MAS program, Horne has long expressed the view that the only things that should be taught in Arizona schools are things that originate in Western or Greco-Roman Civilization. While his bill affects the whole state, his actual target has long been Tucson’s program.

HB 2281 causes the geographic dislocation of the continent. Acting as Royal cosmographer, Horne has ruled that maiz (Mesoamerican) knowledge – indigenous to this continent and the philosophical foundation for MAS – is subversive and not part of Western civilization and does not belong in the West. Through the bill, he also mischaracterizes the program by claiming that its teachers preach hate, segregation, anti-Americanism and the violent overthrow of the government. The bill sets up an inquisitorial mechanism that will monitor books and curriculum. Horne has been especially critical of Rudy Acuña’s Occupied America and Paolo Freire’s Pedagogy of the Oppressed. (Separately, the Arizona Department of Education has banned teachers with heavy accents from teaching English classes).

Welcome to Apartheid Arizona. Despite Arizona’s oppressive climate, many claim that the use of the term apartheid is overblown.

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Tucson federal courthouse: Like clockwork, at 1:30 p.m., 70 short, brown men (sometimes a few women) occupy the left side of the courtroom, shackled at the ankles, the waist and the wrists. Within one hour, they are charged, tried and convicted en masse of being illegally present in the United States. After being dehumanized, they are then paraded out of the courtroom. Most have either served or are sentenced to the private detention facility, operated by the Correctional Corporation of America. This drama unfolds everyday here, every weekday of the year.

Welcome to Operation Streamline. Its goal is to criminalize every migrant that steps into this kangaroo court, while enriching CCA to the tune of some $15 million per month.

Southside Tucson: Several days BEFORE the state legislature passes SB 1070, a massive raid involving 800 military-clad U.S. federal agents swoops into this primarily Mexican-Indigenous community, occupying and terrorizing its residents, all for the purpose of arresting 48 suspects in a human smuggling operation.

Maricopa County: While Sheriff Joe Arpaio denies a racial motivation, over the weekend, he showcases his 15th major “crime sweep” since early 2008 in Phoenix. The sweeps – which target Mexican-Indigenous communities – may have actually backfired. They provide a glimpse to the world as to how the entire state and nation could look like if SB 1070 is affirmed. To conduct these sweeps, Arpaio utilizes the state’s anti human smuggling law, accusing migrants of being accomplices in their own smuggling. Such a use of the law smacks of official kidnapping and terror.

While there were undoubtedly many Arpaio’s in South Africa during the apartheid era, there were no Operation Streamlines there. Kangaroo courts yes, but not daily one-hour mass-show trials.

The Arizona/Mexico border: In the realm of violence, Arizona is no South Africa, but we do have our own killing fields. For the past dozen years, some 5,000 migrants have been found dead in the inhospitable desert; medical reports confirm that many have died due to violence, including blunt trauma to the head (go to: http://www.derechoshumanosaz.net/). That many thousands of migrants are funneled through the desert annually has long been official policy by U.S. immigration officials. Under international law, at best, this could be construed as negligent homicide.

Washington D.C.: Ironically, in response to these draconian laws and measures, even Democrats have been cowed into pushing for more apartheid measures (walls, more agents and the further militarization of the border) as a solution.

Just solutions for the problems listed here require calling for [international] agreements that place human beings at the center, without losing their citizenship, culture, rights or their humanity.

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You change my way of writing, you change my way of thinking. You change my way of thinking, you change who I am.
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   Columnist – John Sammon
Did you see where NASA (stands for, no a-hole bigger than a scientist a-hole), the spaced-out agency that wastes your tax dollars, crashed a rocket into the moon? It reminds me of an old racist slogan about Latino immigrants.

If they (immigrants) can’t eat it or steal it, they paint it (graffiti).

The statement for NASA ought to be, if they can’t control it or exploit it, they bomb it.

The military industrial colossus and its technocrat lackeys, not content with attacking impoverished countries for their oil in the Middle East under the guise of bringing to justice a Saudi Arabian (Bin Laden) by attacking other countries other than Saudi Arabia because we love the Saudi royal family. No. Not content with that, they are now bombing holes in celestial bodies, ostensibly to explore the possibility of water on the moon.

The United States has attacked more countries since 1900 than any other country. The United States has the biggest arms budget and is the biggest arms merchant in the world, all the while professing peace and nobility. The United States views other countries who threaten to attack as outlaw states and labels them as “rogue” nations.

But it’s okay for the United States to launch wars because the United States is always in the right. Now, as if that isn’t enough, the United States, in its infinite corporate fascist wisdom, has decided to attack the F..’ckin’ poor helpless moon.

I have this message for NASA. You bunch of white-coated cowards. You can’t even get it up, or grow hair on your chest. You won’t spend a nickel on a decent second-hand computer for a run down inner-city school, but you spend billions to punch a hole in the moon. I bet if angry people came down there to your windowless bunker where you plan your operations, you’d hide under your desk shaking with a slide rule in your hand.

What’s the moon ever done to you?

Oh I know. If we can somehow guess that there was once water on the moon, we’ll be able to say, hey! There was once water on the moon. That will really help us down here. Nearly half of every ten Americans are now living in poverty. We don’t want to focus any effort on doing anything about it.

Just remember the extreme right wing credo, if it’s money spent on bombing someone, anyone, no matter how many billions, then it’s patriotism, but if it’s money spent on helping people, it’s disloyal communism and subversion. Thus, a right wing extremist knows the cost of some things, and the value of nothing.

So what if we blow a hole in the moon? That was a hole that wasn’t there before. All the right wingers claim they know God personally. God created the moon, didn’t he? Then we come along, and defaced it.

We’re proud of ourselves. We love nothing better than gadgets, things. We don’t care about people, just gizmos. If we can punch a hole in the moon, we’re tough, we’re better than others. We dominate. If we can do it to the moon, anybody we don’t like down here better watch out.

Is there any way we can now pollute the moon like we’ve done our oceans? NASA will find a way. We can store our garbage on the moon. Then, we can pound our chest like apes and say, there was once water on the moon, and now our garbage is on the moon. We conquered the moon.

Just let it go. You’re too busy bombing the moon. The United States is also engaged in bombing two other countries under the guise of installing freedom.

Based on its use of bombing as an instrument of foreign policy and its hypocritical pandering to the arrogant philosophy that the United States is infallible and thus incapable of error, and the fact that the United States has in the last century out-bombed everybody else, but doesn’t want other countries to copy our lead and develop bombs. And to now include in the bombing extra-terrestrial bodies such as the moon.

Based on this display of arrogant, sonofabitch, craven cowardly, dishonest, ivory-tower, holier-than-thou, ruthless corporate, chauvinistic, values-twisted, greedy, lying, Roman-Empire-style act of pillage and hooliganism, defacing the moon.

I would like to see the United Nations (UN) formerly declare the United States to be a dangerous aggressor nation.

The United States, if it didn’t rule the world, would be forced to pay a fine and to repair the damage it has done to the moon, and to formally admit that this was an act of simple vandalism, as well as twisted, misdirected values.

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