When Europeans become conservative Americans

I've never mentioned the entire "birther" nonsense on my blog up until now because I never really took it all that seriously. I didn't think the president did either until he showed his long form birth certificate (pictured above) to the press yesterday to finally lay to rest the controversy over his place of birth and constitutional eligibility to be president.

Not surprisingly, no other American president has had to prove his credentials the way Obama has but I assumed these so-called birthers were the usual suspects: racist, ultra conservative, batshit crazy hillbillies who misspell words on their Tea Party signs.

But no. One of the most prominent birthers (I discovered today; like I said, I didn't really pay much attention to this) is a Moldovan-born and raised dentist and lawyer, Orly Taitz, who still won't let the case die. Now Taitz claims Obama has fake social security numbers.

Let me make myself clear. I don't think birthers would be any more legitimate if they were natural born American citizens, but isn't it a bit ironic that Taitz, who is NOT a natural born citizen, is now playing USA citizen police? What does she, I wonder, having been raised in the former Soviet Union and having studied in Israel, gain from bringing down a president who she claims was born in Kenya? What's it to her?

What is in the water that makes Europeans turn into conservative Americans? Arnold Schwarzenegger? . . . or take a French girl I went to high school with. She wasn't exactly well integrated into the conservative WASPish Maryland community where my high school was located but now, twenty years later, she is a hyper Christian mother with a busload of kids, she home schools, loathes Obama, writes long posts about infanticide, (read abortion) and talks about "the media" as if she were Sarah Palin. She also loves posting about the disadvantages of kids who grow up in single parent households. We'd never talked politics in high school (thank God) but I must say she is the most conservative person I know.

It happened before. The fundamentalist Christian Europeans went to America to start a new life, killed the true Americans for their land and created an inner circle that Africans and their descendants would only be allowed to enter hundreds of years later. Would Taitz like to create a renaissance? (I know, this theory is nuts, but I'm trying to roll birther style)

As Obama said yesterday about the entire birther issue, "We don't have time for this kind of silliness."

Hear! hear! We have a royal wedding to watch!


Photo: flickr

We the "Amis"

I remember well how hard it was to be an American abroad during the Bush years. I felt the German sympathy after 9/11 quickly fade once my home country invaded Iraq. The thuggish Bush war put many of us Americans here on the defensive. How often did I hear in cafes or at intellectual gatherings full of English speakers, "I didn't vote for him!" We weren't only horrified by the subsequent crimes committed there (the images from Abu Ghraib still linger behind my eyelids like a migraine) we were shamed to have an association to such modern day American atrocities; not our grandparents' generation but our own.

We knew well enough not to say we were from "America," but from the United States. We were careful not to come across as ignorant and self-centered. Yet when United States bashing was in order, America and its Amis were the descriptions of choice. American became reserved for the worst kind of national, the gun-toting, war-loving fool who had never set foot outside of the country. Even though some Germans were gracious enough to mention, "Well, you're from New York, that's not really America," I took the criticism to heart anyway. Much of it was true, although it is still very unclear, to many Europeans, just how spread out The United States of America really is. Even in pockets of Texas or on the plains of Montana, you can find liberal thinkers who do not follow the mainstream conservatism associated with their states. The mentalities in America are as diverse as its people.

Still, I admit, it's impossible to look past those Americans who burn Korans or chant "go home" in front of mosques (in New York City, mind you, not Iowa) or the many who believe that Afghan, Pakistani, Yemeni prisoners don't deserve justice because of what they may or may not have contributed to the 9/11 plot.

And now, (it was only a matter of time) the Guantanamo Files have finally brought to light what we knew all along, that many of these prisoners were rounded up for being at the wrong place at the wrong time or simply being the wrong nationality. I can't say I'm surprised by the methods used and the illegal holding of these detainees with no trial but I am disappointed that Obama's administration still has not closed this "modern-day Gulag". I think it's safe to say that Guantanamo Bay and its continued operation is yet another item to add to the list of American political hypocrisy and illegality in its foreign policy.

Guantanamo Bay's continued operation doesn't make me feel that much better being an American today than I did when George W. Bush gave the name American such a bad taste. But I've also been here long enough and speak enough German to insist on separating the actions of a government and the will of many, perhaps not enough, of its citizens.


Photo: flickr

Spring Break Humor

*My husband saw my blog and informed me that this video is old and NOT funny. Sorry about that, I'd never seen it before. Stay tuned for more adventures in bi-cultural parenting. . .it's Spring "Break". . .

That "Hi, how are you today?" with a smile, I'll take it. Superficial or not, it beats a cold stare devoid of a "Guten Tag" any day.

The immediate grin that follows my eyes meeting some else's? I'll take that too.

The "excuse me" when someone walks in front of me while I'm looking at a store shelf? I love it. It takes into account that you are entering my space and acknowledging it.

I miss these simple, perhaps superficial aspects of everyday life in the United States. I miss the friendliness in tone, the service with a smile. You don't have to be my friend, but you can be nice to me in the two seconds we interact.

So how can this everyday friendliness turn into such venom when it really matters? How can these smiling faces elect people that screw the working class, the poor and the elderly?!

The supposed budget compromise that the Republicans and Democrats came to over the weekend says nothing other than, F*#k you, America (please)!

Here are some highlights:

$600 million in cuts to community health centers.

$414 million in cuts to grants for state and local police departments.

$1.6 billion cut in the Environmental Protection Agency's budget, of which nearly $1 billion comes from grants for clean water and other projects by local governments and Indian (native American) tribes.

A $1 billion cut to HIV and disease-prevention funds.

A $3 billion cut to agriculture programs, the biggest portion of which comes from the Women Infants and Children fund, which loses $504 million!

A $390 million cut to low-income heating assistance; Community Development Funds are cut by $942 million!


(The war in Iraq, by the way, costs $1.2 trillion. . .these figures are peanuts, pipi fax, BS in comparison.)

Taking that much money out of the Women and Infants Children fund??? That's like stealing a pocket book from an old lady! Oh wait, Medicare also takes big cuts and social security is on its way down the toilet, too! Well, it appears that America's government can't get any lower.

Obama? Obama? Where art thou? You're supposed to be a Democrat, one of the good guys?! You were a community organizer? You're not advocating for the people who believed in you? Instead, you surround yourself by bankers.*

General Electric paid no taxes last year after earning $14 billion in profits! They got a $3 billion tax credit! How? Why? Get a grip people, the money is not trickling down. The government hid the funnel. American businesses don't pay 35% in taxes the way politicians would like us to believe "The highest corporate tax rates in the world, blah blah. . ." They don't pay ANY taxes. Banks that were bailed out are making huge profits by lending money the government gave them for being greedy and irresponsible.

I'm stuck. I'm culturally completely American. But inhumane laws, compounded by gullible voters, are things that make me appreciate the fundamental aspects of a functioning social democracy like Germany's.

So, for now, I'll just have to suck it up when the cashier ignores my Guten Tag. I'll just breathe deeply when a person runs into me and doesn't say excuse me. Morals count for more than "manners".


*Ok, at least I recognized you again in your speech given after this post. At least you called the budget cuts out for what they are, namely tax breaks for the rich paid for by the neediest.



Photo: flickr

The Citizen vs. The Believer

France's new law banning the public wearing of a niqab went into effect today. Wearing one is punishable by a fine and forcing someone else to wear one carries an even higher monetary penalty.

My gut instinct says, wrong, wrong, wrong. How can a government ban any kind of clothing? Religious or otherwise? It's a clear infringement of religious freedom, it's unconstitutional, right?

But let's be honest.

How tolerant are we, really? How many of us even liberally minded see the niqab as a repression of women? How many of us think this attire is misplaced in a secular society?

The question that keeps coming to my mind is, How far must a society go to protect religious freedom in a secular democracy? And if a niqab is banned, why not a habit, or a yarmulke or a cross?
When and how does the separation of church and state really begin? ( I ask this in a country with a leading party named the Christian Democrats . . . Mama Mia!)




Photo: flickr

Freedom's Burden Part 2

Originally uploaded by tfelix

The USA has no shortage of religious nut cases.

In the first Freedom's Burden post I questioned if the Westboro Baptist Church's demonstrations at soldiers' funerals with signs reading "Thank god for dead soldiers" incited violence? We had differing opinions and that's how I like it on my blog!

Yesterday, 8 UN workers and 4 Afghan citizens were killed when an angry mob attacked the UN in Mazar e Sharif. The mob was enraged by Pastor Terry Jones' burning of a Koran in his Florida church. Jones claims Islam is an intolerant and violent religion. (He says this with no trace of irony in his voice. . . ) Jones insists that in the USA, he has the constitutional right to burn a Koran.

Before he actually committed this very provocative act (at a time when the USA has military presence all over the Middle East and isn't particularly liked) Hillary Clinton and General Petreus (commanding the US military in Afghanistan) warned that a publicized Koran burning in the USA could have repercussions for Americans and westerners in Afghanistan.

What do you think? Did the pastor's burning of a Koran incite violence in Afghanistan?

Looking German

A child visiting a family on our block spent most of this gorgeous afternoon playing with my twin sons. When I went out to call them in for supper the boy asked me, "Aus welchem Land kommt ihr?" Which country do you come from?

"Aus den USA," I said, looking down at his freckly face.

"Then why are you all so brown?"

"Because many different kinds of people live there."

"And what about their papa? Does he also come from the USA?" he asked motioning to one of my sons.

"Mein Papa is Deutsche!" my son said. My father is German!

"Ah, that's why your children speak German!" (this whole conversation, by the way, is happening in German)

"My children speak German," I said, "because they are German, just like you. They were born here."

The boy smiled, "Except that they're brown. But they speak German. That's ok, I guess. Do they have to go to dinner now, or can they play a little longer?"

Photo: flickr