I lost my homeland in the fall of Yugoslavia. My passport changed five times even though I never changed my home address. I could not enter the Library of Congress in the USA because my country did not exist in their computer. Since then, I have spent many hours dealing with the consequences of having… READ THE REST
When I was a kid I was proud of my country, because we were the good guys. I want that back.
There are plenty of people who would call me un-American for saying this. I am so perplexed I have no idea how to answer them.
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I don’t know when you were a kid, but I’m 34 years old, and looking back through my time on earth in this country… we were never the “good guys.” We were often times the least bad guys… but we did a lot of things that americans only NOW are being made aware of (and paying little attention to.)
From the outside looking in, you stopped being ‘the good guys’ shortly after the Korean war. Or possibly before, but it is hard to argue with your (much belated) participation in WWII or in Korea. It is easy to argue with a lot of other actions since - from Guatemalan coups to putting the Shah in Iran.
As for now - well, any good feeling leftover from US participation in WWII is long gone - most of the rest of us were in it too, and for much longer. It was good to have some meaningful opposition to the Soviet Union, but that’s been over for 20 years. Now you just seem like another fading empire throwing its weight around in an attempt to cling to power at all costs. Any country that spends more on arms and military than education is essentially doomed, it is just a matter of time. ($536B Education vs $683B Defense). You control the seas and the air, but eventually better educated and more innovative people will just find a way around that.
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The things I wasn’t aware of don’t count. When I was a kid it was Peace Corps and VISTA and the War on Poverty.
I went through something similar, while trying to travel between Ukraine and Russia via Belarus. I blogged about it, and you might find it amusing 
http://www.skaag.net/2011/09/09/story-ukraine-to-russia-via-belarus/
I was of course very lucky, and the problem was solved same day, but for a few hours I felt what it’s like to be stuck between two countries, unable to enter either of them because my papers would not allow it. It is a rotten feeling.
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