I love the land and for the most part the folks I meet.

I'm really not sure that I'm in love with anything else specifically about our culture, and I don't feel superior...>just lucky<...[to be an American].

2) Blues. Ditto.

3) Olympia, WA.

4) The Interweb and personal computers generally.

5) Refrigeration. Seriously, food borne illness blows chunks.

6) Electricity. Again, refrigeration is cool and it doesn't work as well without electricity.

7) Our long history of resistance to classism and capitalism. Like weekends? You're welcome. Like food safety laws? You're welcome. Like credit unions? You're welcome. Like voting rights? (etc.)

8) I love American journalism, but I often have to find Narconews or Greg Palast to read it, and one of them writes for the BBC.

9) I get to shoot my rifle without being taken to prison for having one.

10) I can choose my attorney.

11) Clean water (yay for no flouride here in Oly, Yay for not being required to make water into wine or beer so that it would not kill me.)

12) Public highways and buses. I'd like a high speed train to California, though, so we can reduce the I-5 traffic by 30% or more.

13) A general lack of superstition (if you ignore the Evangelical Christians.)

14) Emma Goldman Youth and Homeless Outreach Project.

15) Done and Done.

16) Mom.

17) The Evergreen Beach.

18) Free Radio Olympia 98.5 FM being back on the freaking air very soon!

(These are in no particular order of importance.)

I grew up loving America.

I grew up believing that America was fair. I wasn't deluded. I was aware of racism, sexism, the classism practiced by those in power. But I believed that at the heart of affairs, things were essentially good, and only destined to improve.

That was before I read books like Jerry Manders', In the Absence of the Sacred: The Failure of Technology and the Survival of the Indian Nations. That was before the effects of the Reagan Revolution began to evince themselves.

I still love America. I believe that the American people are essentially good, honest, hard-working people. I love the land - the mountains and the sea, the forests and the fields, the plants and animals. This is a phenomenal country. So much potential.

That's why it saddens me so much that so much - so much energy and potential is being wasted - wasted on the pursuit of empire and a foreign policy of militarism, violence and dominance...

It's time to wake up and smell the coffee - people. The rug is being pulled out from under our feet. Religious fundamentalists who believe they are only doing G-d's will have penetrated the halls of power.

I love America: the people, the land, the fish, the fruits, the waters and skies, the energy (energy of all sorts) that exists here.

I also love a vision of a better America. A better tomorrow.

I believe it's possible. But people have to wake up and realize how we are getting screwed by the biggest big business international corporations... We are losing our jobs. We are losing our environment. We are losing our health. We are losing our lives.

Wake-Up!

Even though there are an awful lot of the consequences that I really don't like...

Best,
Thad

story before, but I think it's worth repeating.

A KATUSA and I were on night-shift during a field exercise. It was slow and I had only been on the Korean peninsula for a month, so we had a lot to talk about.

This KATUSA - Jung is his family name - is a student at Seoul National University, the university to go to in South Korea. Thus, he's very proficient at English (all KATUSAs are supposed to be, but theory and practice rarely match each other).

At any rate, we were talking about the Korean War and the light many young South Koreans view the United States in.

He said he's disappointed that many of his peers despise the United States, especially when they owe so much for there being a South Korea in the first place. When he went to Korea's War Memorial as a child, it had always stuck with him how many American names are listed. You see, at the memorial the name of every American killed is listed on a rock, along with the state they came from.

He cried when he saw this - over 36,000 total - because they died for Korea. Jung said he couldn't help but feel sad, because they died for a people they had never met and a land they had never been to before.

The younger generation tries to dilute these deaths and the actions of the United States by saying they acted in its own interest, for global hegemony. Jung said none of that matters. That the reason behind American - "United Nations" - intervention in Korea is irrelevant. At the end of the day, after contemporary academics write their papers, South Korea is a free country because a group of Americans - fighting in a conflict that is a footnote in their home country - came and took action.

It's the American Potential. Every politician promise to deliver it to us in November. Occasionally we not only reach it, but exceed it beyond our wildest imaginations. Often times, we fall very, very short.

But that potential - and the times when we do realize it - is what we should celebrate, love and never forget.

Many people around the world haven't, while some are still waiting for it.