How do I feel about America and Americans? It takes a lot of balls…

by NDK Creative Artist

I feel I ought to clarify how I feel about America and Americans as we have recently received some rather uninformed and disturbing anonymous defamatory communications and accusations challenging the Free Articulator and me personally. We are now investigating further with the possibility of additional action to be undertaken given the nature and frequency of the communications received and threats made. The person making these statements is obviously unaware of defamation law and is probably in violation of their ISP’s terms of use and we are looking into that and their obvious personal agenda.

“You are not here merely to make a living. you are here to enable the world to live more amply, with greater vision, and with a finer spirit of hope and achievement. You are here to enrich the world. You impoverish yourself if you forget this errand.” Woodrow Wilson

1. I like American Ideology as stated in the Constitution of the United Sates of America and in the original documents of the Founding Fathers, many of which I studied while I lived in America.
2. I like democracy, I’d even go so far as to say “I love it, value it and cherish it,” when and where we can find it actually working. I don’t see it working in America any more, and there are plenty of people in America and other nations around the world who are expressing their desire for America to start acting responsibly - even democratically - in world affairs. Some of these experts I have linked to and mentioned already. I wrote a song about democracy at one point. It’s called “No Party for Me.” Wrote it the year the First Shrubbery came to power, you know the guy who wanted everybody to lip-read. He told a few whoppers too, but his son has taken that lesson way too far.
3. However, today I do not think America lives up to those ideals. In fact I find America today to be untrustworthy as a nation and have called it “The Duperpower,” this is because I think calling America a super power is incorrect; there is a connotation to the word super that means something is superior in an enlightened way, that denotes character to be admired. Applied to America the term lauds the idea of military and economic might being somehow superior to reason, diplomacy and other methods than force. America lies to the world and gets away with it, it thinks. “We don’t torture” when plainly they do, among many other similar prevarications, distortions, equivocations, and outright lies. There is nothing super about the sort of behavior we have seen in the Bush White House, (and earlier White Houses going as far back as Nixon), with Video News Releases (VNRs), the atrocities at Abhu Ghraib, Blackwater, the scandals of Enron, Worldcom, Coca Cola and the sugar cartels, the tobacco giants, and Senate scandals (see the year 2000 list), and other mass murderers and purveyors of misery, murder, disaster and chaos. The list of American duplicity and deception, goes on, and on, and on. The nations that are quietly going about their business looking after their people rather than getting them killed and lied to in droves, are far, far superior–in my opinion–as examples of good democratic governance and freedom in the world. It is not I who am un-American, it is America that is un-American and until that stops, I shall continue to decry the un-American-ness of America. The world belongs to the people of the world and it is not an American world nor an American Century. May it never be.
4. I no longer believe that America is a democracy. It is pretending to be one. But it is not acting like one. Therefore it is a duplicitous nation. America fucks with truth, treating truth as if it is a commodity to be modified and twisted and spun at will, but truth is not a commodity, it is just what it is. Altering truth is dishonest.
5. I have written frankly and in tribute of my admiration of Al Gore, an American who is in my opinion embodying what it means to be American, and many “Americans” should be taking example from him. Some are and I’ll support their endeavors too; when and how I can.
6. I have many friends and colleagues in America, and around the world and I have talked to them at length about what’s happening in our world today. Many send me information they know I’ll find interesting and because they know I’ll put it to good use. I read very widely and talk to many people all over the world about how they feel about what’s happening in our civilization. I find, uniformly, that people are concerned, worried and often in despair. And they have good reason to be. When you question them at length the subject of America is the one most worrisome, and the world’s media, that part of it not controlled by America, is also heavily focused on the problem America presents to the world.

I realize that these views and ideas will be unpopular with some. I can’t help that. I accept it. It doesn’t bother me that they feel differently; I find that most are not as informed about what is happening in the world, even as they question why things are not good. Most people don’t want to know the truth. I do want to know. As an author and storyteller, it’s my right and duty to know. And when I know I form my opinions and conclusions and my analyses and seek to find some way to help offer different perspectives.

I attend upon many web sites that openly debate and make many “anti-American” statements to do with the state of life in America; many of these sites are American. I read many detailed reports from the United Nations, Human Rights organizations and others. So none of what I say is founded purely and only on speculation, opinion or a lack of experience. It is founded in factual, reported information that is available in a wide variety of publications. Publications and articles I frequently discuss with my many American friends and colleagues.

I’m very concerned that a nuclear power has little or no regard for international law. I live on this planet. It’s my planet too. I have a right as a human being to be concerned about what is wrong with my society, culture and civilization.

None of what I say or write is based on anything not looked at and considered and verified nor unevaluated and from anything but many viewpoints. That’s how I work, it’s how I’ve worked for years.

“The opposite of courage in our society is not cowardice. It is conformity.” - Rollo May, Man’s Search for Himself

I also help many American artists. They are just as concerned about the state of their country, and the erosion of their rights and they often take risks to talk to me, for they know they are being surveiled and living in a police state. I was married to an American who detested her country’s state but felt powerless to do anything about it. I’ve seen how American women are jumpy, frightened and incredibly insecure because of the nature of their society and American culture. I know it’s not the same in my country, though it is not perfect by any means when it comes to women’s, children’s or disabled and ethnic rights. And I am active in movements that address those human rights. I don’t just talk, or write, I do.

I want America to return to its ideals and recover its former glory and place of respect in the world, and I have ideas about how that could be accomplished. Currently, the man who is in the White House, running that country, is not a man to be trusted. It is known world wide that he is a liar. I have good friends who live in America, they know who I am and what I do, and why I do it. Many of them are active supporters of Allforart, the Free Articulator and other projects. I’ve even warned them about what I am planning to say. Not one of them has told me not to express what I am expressing; rather they have encouraged me and thanked me.

I am sick of war. I am sick of the lies. I am sick of the struggle to live that is so tied up with injustice and property ownership, and economic injustice and the consequences all of this has for our environment, and indeed all life on this planet. So, I am here to do something about it, whatever I can. I have spent much of my life endeavoring to create good work and do good things. And I have done many good things, for which many people including Americans are grateful. Doesn’t mean I am a perfect person. But I will not stick my head in the sand and do nothing while the human race creates hell on earth. So to those who support George W. Bush, and America as it is today, you do that. I will not. I’ve lived there. I’ve experienced it, and I know how it is.

Are there good things happening in America? Yeah, here and there, there are, but by and large the scorecard of America’s actions in the world doesn’t rate. What’s anti-American, is the way America is acting in the world under the leadership of George W. Bush and that gang of thugs that work together for the corporatocracy. Some say America is heading for collapse. I hope it doesn’t, because when it does collapse the consequences for everybody are not good.

I want it to change. I want the American people to exercise their democratic rights (if they have any left that are worth a damn) and get justice done against those who have caused misery. But this situation will not change when we ignore it and say nothing, for to say nothing or even to support such behavior as America is currently engaged in domestically, and internationally, is to be un-American. If you stop to consider what I’m really saying and think about what the words actually say, instead of what you think they say, you’ll find I’m not at all un-American, nor anti-America.

“It is difficult to free fools from the chains they revere.” - Voltaire (1694-1778)

It takes a lot of balls to say what I have been saying and I take no pleasure in saying it. But I will not stand by and say and do nothing, or worse believe the propaganda that is so often proven to be false; that’s the wrong thing to do; it creates and/or perpetuates this mess.

I’m a Creative Artist, that means I care, deeply, about Humanity and the decay that is happening in our society, civilization and planet. As a Creative Artist, and a storyteller, it is my job, in part, to imagine the future, to call attention to the consequences of particular paths of action, and to do my best to make a noise. But my statements about America as it is today, and about the likely consequences are also being stated by others, who, independent of myself, are saying similar things, and warning of dire consequences for our civilization. Many of these are American, and more American than those in the current White House. We need to end the decay of this civilization.

Calling me and what I say silly childish names is not going to make one whit of difference to why I’m here doing what I’m doing. Cos I got balls, baby. I can look 9 Zeroes in the face and say “No!” Of course, it’s more difficult with ten.

If I hate anything…

Hate. There is no hate in me for any man, woman, child or living creature. None. Never will be. Rather I detest: the ideas which are used to separate us from ourselves and the truths of our relationships with each other and the world; the irrational exposition of vituperative expression utilized to assert without reason a personal opinion that is obviously founded on nothing rational. If I hate anything I hate the false, valueless, and unworkable ideas that lie at the heart of the rot and decay that characterizes civilization and culture at this time. American Mythology as it is today is at the heart of American duplicity and hubris. Such mythology usually requires a humbling before it can be healed. An example of such an idea would be Milton Friedman’s change doctrine as exposed by Naomi Klein in her work Shock Doctrine: The Rise of Disaster Capitalism. That such a man has the Nobel Prize is, from my perspective, contemptible. Alfred Nobel said in his will:

“The whole of my remaining realizable estate shall be dealt with in the following way: The capital shall be invested by my executors in safe securities and shall constitute a fund, the interest on which shall be annually distributed in the form of prizes to those who, during the preceding year, shall have conferred the greatest benefit on mankind.”

It is obvious to me that Friedman’s ideas do not confer the greatest benefit on mankind, rather his ideas enslave mankind because the economic reality is that the middle class is being eroded by debt and the wealthy are just getting more wealthy, while the numbers of poor continue to grow. That’s the result of independent Non-Governmental Organization reports, which I’ve referred to in articles that are coming up with the release of the Free Articulator’s new look.

If I get pissed off at something it’s for the right reasons and there is nothing blind, nor unthinking about it. There is usually quite a bit of frustration directed at those whose idiocy now consumes time and energy, but hate? Never.

Debate ideas with me. Challenge me and we’ll get it on and enjoy some intellectual rigor, and if you can teach me a different viewpoint, that is well-substantiated, I’ll be grateful for the lesson. But attack me personally? No. That will never work; it is the mark of a coward to engage in personal attack.

Extinction is not an option…

A more thorough analysis of the state of our culture and civilization from the perspective of Creative Artists will be published in the Free Articulator (if you are interested in this in-depth report, register and subscribe) soon, when the time is right to do so. Extinction is not an option we wish to entertain any more.

To put imagination back to constructive work, we first need to know what it is we are dealing with so we’re taking a look at the big picture and then we will see what we as Creative Artists can do. We do have a few ideas, worthy of a fair hearing and with a few laughs at a serium subject maybe we can make some sense out of it.

I am not here merely to make a living. I am here to enable the world to live more amply, with greater vision, and with a finer spirit of hope and achievement. I am here to enrich the world. I have not forgotten that this is my errand and I am therefore, not impoverished in myself, a Creative Artist. - NDK Creative Artist

Where do we go now?

If you can't wait for more, explore the archives sorted by month via the links in the right-hand sidebar, or use the Category links in the same place.

If you'd rather we did all the hard work, you're in luck. Here's a list of articles that are related to this one:

• I’ve got a message for you
• The Creative Artist as Global Activist — Applauding Trent Reznor’s Example
• Another great idea: Eliminate Corporate Criminal Liability — Robert Reich’s Package Deal
• Ideas and their value - Support the Tuneback
• Welcome to the Free Articulator