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Letter from America, 2025 [1]
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Date: 2025-05-06
Hey, world..!
Long time, no see! It’s me, Soupbone — heh, heh, sorry, Friedrichshafen, about the late night noisy nudity… had a great time at your festival, though..! Berlin, not so much — I could feel the past everywhere and there wasn’t enough beer in Berlin to keep me as drunk as I needed to be. Still, I met some great people and appreciated the experience..!
And sorry I haven’t been in touch, London… that was a magical, transformative year, 1977, and I’m, uh, really embarrassed I haven’t kept in better contact. I mean, we didn’t have Facebook, but I could have written more letters…
And gee, Scotland and France — although I didn’t spend much time with you, you sure made a big impact on me… love to come back, sometime…
And China, Japan and Vietnam — although I haven’t been there yet, you are next on my list — I have loved your residents who I have met, I love your food and culture and I can't wait to come see you in your own homes on your own terms…
That is, if we ever get to travel internationally again in my lifetime. Whether it’s the climate and jet fuel or the Orange Julius Caesar’s tariffs and general ugliness, I don’t imagine we Americans will get the same welcome we did in the 60s, 70s, 80s, 90s and early aughts. Quite right, too… it’s kind of a lot to unpack…
While I would like to blame just one man, one particular leaky American sack of shit named Donald, I’m afraid the problem with America is much bigger than that… half of us voted for him, after all. And while I would like to blame them, too, where do I find the leg to stand on? Like the rest of my countrymen and women, I spent most of my life blissfully (willfully) unaware of my privilege, influence and footprint on the planet. It was offered and I took. And took. I was an artist, and tried to make ironic modern pieces about American men (still) seeing German women in Germany as mostly conquests; I was a politician and tried to make what change I could in my hometown, but couldn’t really change much; I was a father and tried (guiltily) to teach my children to be a better person than I was; and I am a healer and try to learn and teach sustainability, this term that only seems to be necessary for Americans. Okay, that last is a bit harsh — English and other imperialists have certainly had a good run at building empires based on thievery and unsustainable exploitation, too.
However, we Americans are in a class of our own, aren’t we..? We seem especially allergic to education, AKA learning from our mistakes. From the inside, I wince and call it immaturity as a nation. I mean, “exceptionalism?” That sounds like someone’s super power in a comic book… as long as we have adolescent comic book expectations, I guess we get comic book villains… because there ain’t no such thing as a super hero (sorry, Max Espinosa!).
I don’t have anything to offer right now, rest of the world, except chagrin. America is having its comeuppance right now, thanks, and we’ll be a better, more stable, more realistic and more constructive country… one of these days. It’s not yet clear how far down we’re going to drag the rest of the world or how long it’s gonna take, but if the species survives we will re-join it! I suspect we’ll have no choice, if we want to eat. See, every other civilization in the world knows this — you’re lucky if you have enough to eat. However, teenagers and Americans expect more, and Americans have RECEIVED more — not only did we want to gobble the world up, but the world got pleasure in watching us satisfy our enormous appetites… and profited by selling us the hamburgers and cheese we were shoving down our throats (and the vodka and cocaine we were shoving into other places).
I guess what I’m trying to say is: I am part of the problem. I am an American. More, I’m a straight white American male. The fact that I have recognized that I am part of the problem for my entire life doesn’t really get me very much. If I look at my own, personal life, the ways I have moved in the world, the things I have assumed, accepted and taken for granted… I’m not that far from DJT, himself. No inherited wealth, but otherwise… We 20th century Americans were taught to expect, accept and practice abuse, like a bunch of fraternity brothers, and like the frat bros, the payoff was gonna be later, when you were on easy street with all the connections (co-conspirators) you made in the frat house. Well, later is here, human connections aren’t all they’re cracked up to be, and the payoff is that the world has finally had enough of human abuse and is making her opinion known. From the climate to the pandemics, the planet is in the process of re-explaining that we are just a bunch of fleas on her skin that she can shake off at will. Again, Europe, Africa, Asia and even Russia, the fucking psychopaths, know this and tread lightly in response. South America and Australia at least have had the grace to listen a little bit to their aboriginal populations, and so haven’t been as confident and brutal in their stupidity as America. But we Americans still expect to stomp everywhere, eat everything, drink everything, snort everything, shoot everything, fuck everybody and still “be good” with everything and everyone.
This is a fatally flawed expectation, and many of us will die proving it to America while we wait for her citizenry and civilization to grow up.
Uh, sorry..?
Hang in there, World!
Love,
Soupbone
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