Ashamed to be an American
Doug Soderstrom has written an article entitled: “Why I am Ashamed to be an American”
Doug grew up in a small town in Central Kansas and like most of us was taught to believe that the United States of America, was committed to justice and peace. We felt that our nation could be count on to do the right thing. Soderstrom realized that “there is nothing wrong with feeling ashamed for having done something wrong, that such a response is a rather natural consequence of having violated one’s conscience, a voice from deep within that is no doubt a reliable guide for how a man (or woman) of true integrity ought to live his (or her) life.”
He soon recognized that there were some, who seem to lack the capacity to feel ashamed, and wondered what must be wrong with them.
Soderstrom discovered that “there was an ever, ongoing flow of hints, subtle suggestions that things were not as I had been told.” It wasn’t until our country vented its awful wrath upon a post 9-11 world that he began to realize that he had been misled and took a long, hard look at the history of our country, a thorough examination of what turned out to be a past drenched in the blood of our foes, foreign lands raped of their natural resources, democratically elected governments overthrown, an outrageous succession of egregious arrangements with tyrants and dictators from around the world, along with the fact that our nation is the only developed country in the world that utilizes the death penalty to kill its own people, and that we imprison more of our own people than any other nation in the world” Thus, he was “enabled to gain a better understanding of why there are so many folks around the world who have become upset by our nation’s apparent willingness to abuse and exploit our fellow man.”
Dr. Soderstrom concluded that “the vast majority of the American public is out of touch with reality, that such folks have unwittingly allowed themselves to have become mercilessly entangled in a world of fabrication and make-believe, a nation dominated by sheepish yes-men unwilling to face the fact that we, as a nation, are, and for some time have been, caught in a downward spiral of moral decline.”
Doug Soderstrom, Ph.D. is a psychologist and can be reached at dougsoderstrom@sbcglobal.net
Doug grew up in a small town in Central Kansas and like most of us was taught to believe that the United States of America, was committed to justice and peace. We felt that our nation could be count on to do the right thing. Soderstrom realized that “there is nothing wrong with feeling ashamed for having done something wrong, that such a response is a rather natural consequence of having violated one’s conscience, a voice from deep within that is no doubt a reliable guide for how a man (or woman) of true integrity ought to live his (or her) life.”
He soon recognized that there were some, who seem to lack the capacity to feel ashamed, and wondered what must be wrong with them.
Soderstrom discovered that “there was an ever, ongoing flow of hints, subtle suggestions that things were not as I had been told.” It wasn’t until our country vented its awful wrath upon a post 9-11 world that he began to realize that he had been misled and took a long, hard look at the history of our country, a thorough examination of what turned out to be a past drenched in the blood of our foes, foreign lands raped of their natural resources, democratically elected governments overthrown, an outrageous succession of egregious arrangements with tyrants and dictators from around the world, along with the fact that our nation is the only developed country in the world that utilizes the death penalty to kill its own people, and that we imprison more of our own people than any other nation in the world” Thus, he was “enabled to gain a better understanding of why there are so many folks around the world who have become upset by our nation’s apparent willingness to abuse and exploit our fellow man.”
Dr. Soderstrom concluded that “the vast majority of the American public is out of touch with reality, that such folks have unwittingly allowed themselves to have become mercilessly entangled in a world of fabrication and make-believe, a nation dominated by sheepish yes-men unwilling to face the fact that we, as a nation, are, and for some time have been, caught in a downward spiral of moral decline.”
Doug Soderstrom, Ph.D. is a psychologist and can be reached at dougsoderstrom@sbcglobal.net
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