Thoughts on America's Future and My Own

I will always be an American. But this America is a place I don’t think I am proud to call home right now. It’s not the place I grew up in. People’s attitudes about so much is so much different and so much more cynical and unhappy. The Democrats, the supposed “liberal” party is being torn apart by racism and misogyny. As if that isn’t an ironic twist with a lot of implications on many levels. And the other party, the Republicans? What of them? Mainly a party of of the WASP establishment which will be friends with Israel/Jews as long as we serve a purpose, after which we will be quite unwelcome reminders of the people they were supposed to have replaced, but haven’t yet.

Women here are in a state of utter confusion. The Jewish community in France is largely more conservative than it is here, some of which is assimilated and other of which is not. But those women know what it means to be a Jewish wife. The Jewish females here, the ones that are past 35 and single, are hysterical. Hysterical. And I don’t mean funny hysterical. Deep down hysterical. Find me someone with the beauty of Salma Hayek, the brains and politics of Rachel Maddow and the notion of what it means to be a Jewish wife. And not a total nut-job. A simple request, no? It being the month of Adar B (the month of Purim) when everything is backward, perhaps there is hope for me yet.

Really, I would need to move to New York or Chicago. That is a more realistic thing than France, believe me. But one thing I’ve learned is never to say never. How about a Mexican restaurant on the Croisette in Cannes?

As for my loving America, I love America. Enough to, like a retired football player, remember better days of glory. This America isn’t what the founders had in mind nor is it the place that our grandfathers came to. And may I suggest that one of the reasons you feel safe in Sedona is because the land is sprinkled with the blood of those savage American Indians who got in the way of the wonderful people who ran the government back when we America needed some “lebensraum”. (I don’ t mean that as an insult or to challenge what you heard at all.) As a people whose ancestors were also wiped out at one point or another, we are of like minds with the Indians, so we are OK there. By the way, my paternal grandfather also left to avoid service in the Czar’s army and got out. Are we just “good Germans” now if we don’t hit the streets in protest to what is happeing here?

As for anti-Semitism in France, it’s obviously true it exists. It’s just more obvious there than it is here. But you know, this is a big country where the haters can hide. It’s hard for the haters to hide in France because it’s smaller and therefore people have to talk to each other. Sometimes there is a fight or an atrocity, but at least they communicate somehow. We have not learned how to talk to each other openly and honestly without fear of retribution. We live, it is sad to say, in fear. That fear silenced us. Having had to face Crohn’s and now an aggressive blood condition, I just don’t care any more. As Buber once said “love me or hate me, but don’t feel nothing”. That is an unpopular modus Vivendi in these days of awe and silence. Not to mention a numbness toward notions of fair play and justice. My naivete is shining through here.

I am convinced that this country is, in the course of its life, on its descent in influence much as the British empire began to deteriorate after WWII. There were plenty of Brits who saw the writing on the wall as it relates to the UK and went overseas to live as expatriates because they did not recognize their country, either, not to mention colonization all over the world.

To protest today is to be anti-patriotic. Can you imagine, in today’s environment, riots on campuses over ANY issue? If the campuses didn’t riot over what Bush has done to this country, nothing will moitvate our young, who are the most likely to be idealistic. Except perhaps the prospect of a draft. After that, you’ll hear a hue and cry, and people will finally get serious. Until then, watch out. My friend in London once told me that there is a standard that people always carry valid, current passports in England. The anti-Semitic acts there are as or more frequent, brazen and awful than in France. My friend was dropping his daughter at her school (she was 9 at the time) when some yutz in a pickup truck goes by and yells “back to Auschwitz wif you!”. Are they the canaries in the coal mine for us?

I need a Valium.