One Thing Americans can be Proud Of
In short, they can be proud they are not British. They had felt inferior to them for most of their history (although they would deny this vigorously). In 1812, they went to war with them (again) just to satisfy themselves about this point.
However, much later, at the end of WWII (which ended the British Empire) they had a much better reason to be proud of themselves. As the book The Victims of Yalta says – they were much more ethical in dealing with the Soviets, and the return of Russian prisoners (many of whom did not want to go back), than the British were. This makes interesting reading – and this book is so big, there is a lot to read there.
Here I have a huge advantage over my fellow-Americans – I read, when most of them do not. They only watch movies.
My reading is an advantage to me personally – but of no interest to most people on the Net, where I blog constantly. For the most part, they are proud of themselves because they know so little – while believing they know everything.
And the rest of the world is rushing to emulate them – while denying it vigorously, of course. The future is clear – people will consume more and more – while knowing less and less.
One of the members of the famed movie reviewing team of Siskel and Ebert made the comment in the last couple of years, that after a life-time of reviewing movies, among the vast quantity he’d seen, those really worth watching he numbered . . . only twenty!