A is for (American) Anger
Americans today define themselves both by their anger, and by the side they take in battles that keep their anger passionate. Tea baggers vs. non-patriots. Red states vs blue states. Coastal states vs. fly-over states. South vs. everybody else. Christians vs. Muslims. Gays vs. gay-fearers. White men vs. their oppressors. Black men vs. THEIR oppressors. It seems that the adopted middle name of many Americans must be “vs.” because in many ways, our deep anger and our polarizing labels must reflect we are just not very happy with ourselves.
American anger is first expressed in words. Nobody is doing “what I want them to do.” Government will not “listen to me.” Government is “doing too much” and “doing too little” simultaneously. People from all backgrounds are so angry, that in this Christian nation, even Jesus as a national leader would hear not just the angry words of the American crowd, he would probably be crucified by them. After all he could never be what all sides wanted him to be … their agent, under their control, providing benefits to all his supporters, and punishing all who were not.
Sorry, I realize that is exactly what happened to Jesus. The crowd, manipulated or not, let their wrath lead to their own downfall, for only a few years after Jesus’ death, the Diaspora began. Can America’s anger lead to the same lessening of American pride and might? Perhaps, especially if more and more Americans fall so much in love with their anger, that they become addicted to it.
But if we use anger to lead us on an exploration of our own role in making things better, in realizing that all Jesus wanted us to find was the individual power to grow past our anger and our selfish obsessions, we may be okay. We may even find that others proclaimed a similar message, like Budda 500 years before Christ, and Mohammed 500 years after, and then we could really begin to create a greater society.
So join me on an alphabetic journey to take our Anger, and move those feelings into more fulfilling expressions of (American) democracy.
Tags: America, anger, democracy
America | Stan Kaczmarek | 01 October 2010 |
