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We Stand Accused as Fat, Flag-Waving Crybabies
NMB, Florida February 10, 2002 A.H. Schectman
THINKING ALLOWED
Essays on Issues, Ideas and Reflections on the Times. Published Now and
Then. Opinions Pro or Con Are Welcome.
WE STAND ACCUSED AS FAT, FLAG-WAVING CRYBABIES
I have become aware that our European brothers and sisters as well as our
cousins in the non-western world hate and laugh at us. These people are
saying we DESERVE the tribulations visited upon us by heroes who piloted
their captured planes and passengers into two tall business structures and
one five-sided building. The irrelevancies of thousands of innocents being
liquidated seem not to be part of the accounting. What is important is that
we are seen as obese, emotional and patriotic. These accusations are
serious and we are in trouble.
We do overeat. The overly fat people living in the U.S. are perhaps just a
function of our having more than other countries. Perhaps we should be
ashamed of having plenty as opposed to being without. To non-Americans if an
excessively heavy Yank should occupy their space - it is somehow vulgar.
For Americans to make a lot of fuss about a lot of people who were wiped out
in one of the strangest occurrences ever to happen makes our brothers and
sisters wince with the mawkishness of it. It all boils down to the fact
that we have gotten too big for our britches and it was good that we were
taken down a peg. All those flags are just too much.
When we are branded as fat, flag-waving crybabies you and I know it is
wrong-headed. And, do you know what? We do this all the time to others
with whom we have very close blood relationships and can simply stand them
no longer. It is a human thing that we do. We are not nice to others. Why
should we expect others to be nice to us?
I had students who were the most persistent pests. They never understood
that they should not have been in a classroom in the first place. They were
unintelligent and unable to cope with simple instructions. Yet, they
continued to badger me with their requests for assistance, understanding and
did not have the slightest idea that they were trying my patience. I
courteously listened to them, repeatedly answered the same questions over
and over again, reassured them and let them come back time and again. Theirs
was the kind of oblivious insensitivity that our brothers and sisters in the
western world are showing us now when they look at us and see only fat,
flag-waving crybabies. Carol's Evaluation: 10 out of 10.
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