Proud…to be an…American?

January 30, 2009

They say that living in America is one of the best places. They say that we are the richest, strongest, freest and happiest country in the world. And not only do people say all this, they write songs about America like “Proud to be an American” by Lee Greenwood, or poetry about our glorious freedom like “For Freedom” by Bobby Garcia. America is well-know for its graciousness, the pathway to a better life awaits many immigrants here in America. Yet many of us true whole-heart Americans cannot even go day to day, barely surviving and hardly even affording to live here.

We have oil prices that drop but greedy gas companies that sucker us out of money with high gas prices. There are those that have honest hard working lifestyles that make less than $40,000 a year but mascots for an NBA basketball team that cannot show up for work like they are supposed to and lose their jobs that pay them $100,000 a year to jump around and make the crowds yell. The New York State Governor wants to put tax on sodas and says that it is to address the obesity problem when really it is just to take the hard working peoples money. We seriously think about having to home school our kids because sending them to a place where they can be sexual harassed by teachers or be video taped while being beaten up is more of an issue than our kids social lives.

Proud to be an American doesn’t seem so proud anymore. The Statue of Liberty states: “Give me your tired, your poor…” Well I guess they will make the poor even more poor by hustling us out of our money and make the working men and women even more tired by making them work more just to pay bills and buy food.

In the words of Lee Greenwood: “I’d thank my lucky stars, to be livin here today.” Well, I would thank my stars if America was truly the best place to live nowadays, but I wonder if that would be a lie.