In re Jackie's comments, "It's EMBARRASSING;" "They're LAUGHING at us."
Americans are a prideful people. I remember Carmen saying one time while watching a soldier movie, "I am so proud to be an American." They laugh at Cuba or Venezuela because Cuba and Venezuela are laughable, embarrassing. They're Americans because they did laugh at Cuba or Venezuela, they were embarrassed by Cuba or Venezuela, and they didn't want to be laughing at, nor be embarrassed by, their country.
"Trump wants to build a WALL. That's something a kid would say."
Or Castro or Chavez. "From now on...everybody will wear their underwear on the outside." Leaving one banana republic for another banana republic was not the plan.
There was a time when Americans were more sensitive to what the world thought of them. We were very touchy on the circumstances of our illegitimate birth in the early years. The Declaration of Independence had not the becoming patina of age at the time. It was a source of defensiveness.
I'm reading a biography of Andrew Jackson:
"Jackson would not give his foes the satisfaction of playing into the caricature of a wild-eyed backwoodsman brandishing a whip and a pistol...
"In doing so Jackson mirrored a national phenomenon. Control over how one appeared to the rest of the world was a subject of popular concern in the America of Jackson's time, and he was in many ways an example of a recognizable type: a man from the bottom rungs of society...in search of a code of manners."
That's the way we were. "Wild-eyed backwoodsmen." Ill-clothed, ill-mannered, ill-tempered, ill-educated, our cities a joke compared to London or Paris, that is also the America Charles Dickens described later in the 19th century.
I'm reading a biography of Andrew Jackson because this age reminds some of that age. That's embarrassing.
Americans are a prideful people. I remember Carmen saying one time while watching a soldier movie, "I am so proud to be an American." They laugh at Cuba or Venezuela because Cuba and Venezuela are laughable, embarrassing. They're Americans because they did laugh at Cuba or Venezuela, they were embarrassed by Cuba or Venezuela, and they didn't want to be laughing at, nor be embarrassed by, their country.
"Trump wants to build a WALL. That's something a kid would say."
Or Castro or Chavez. "From now on...everybody will wear their underwear on the outside." Leaving one banana republic for another banana republic was not the plan.
There was a time when Americans were more sensitive to what the world thought of them. We were very touchy on the circumstances of our illegitimate birth in the early years. The Declaration of Independence had not the becoming patina of age at the time. It was a source of defensiveness.
I'm reading a biography of Andrew Jackson:
"Jackson would not give his foes the satisfaction of playing into the caricature of a wild-eyed backwoodsman brandishing a whip and a pistol...
"In doing so Jackson mirrored a national phenomenon. Control over how one appeared to the rest of the world was a subject of popular concern in the America of Jackson's time, and he was in many ways an example of a recognizable type: a man from the bottom rungs of society...in search of a code of manners."
That's the way we were. "Wild-eyed backwoodsmen." Ill-clothed, ill-mannered, ill-tempered, ill-educated, our cities a joke compared to London or Paris, that is also the America Charles Dickens described later in the 19th century.
I'm reading a biography of Andrew Jackson because this age reminds some of that age. That's embarrassing.