AMERICA... THE DYSFUNCTIONAL PARENT

     My 50+ years on this earth I've had many extraordinary experiences.  I've have taken advantage of everything America had to offer.  Early on, at the age of nineteen, I learned my first adult lessons about participation in the American way of life.  Regrettably, I learned sometimes America is not what it is portrayed to be.  I learned the American Dream is not necessarily the goal we chase but the way we retell the story of America.  Revisionist history is often the American Dream.  We long for the good old days, not when America was necessarily great but when we were young enough not to know any better.  Don't misunderstand me.  America has done some great things.  Technology and War are two of our greatest things.  But when you take a closer look at the "Greatness" of America you will find it was never great for all, and rarely great for most.
     I am astonished how many Americans can preach the positive attributes of America while ignoring the glaring misdeeds of our country, often suffering and victimized by these misdeeds.  In many instances citizens are the dysfunctional parents of a selfish and sometimes sociopathic child, America.  We make excuses for America.  We encourage it's behaviors with our denial.  We allow America to function without consequences and continue it's path to misery and eventually demise.  We are the parents who can go on in a fit of anger about all of America's misdeeds but punctuate the end of the tirade with the statement, "Don't get me wrong, I love America."  It is time we stopped making excuses for America.  It is time we took a much closer look at America.  It is time we realize that America cannot act this way if we don't allow it.  After all, we are the parents of America and like any other poor-behaving child... the parents are always responsible.  We taught the child to act this way and we continue to allow him to act this way.  It is time we fully accepted our responsibility for the misdeeds of America.  Twenty five plus year as a therapist and counselor I have learned we must reach back into the past to determine why we sit in our present situation.  Most importantly we must take an HONEST look at our history and learn from our mistakes.  We must understand how our actions (and inactions) have led us here.  We must see how our inability to accept the truths of the past have allowed America to flounder in the present.
     Presently America is being attacked from all angles.  Radical Muslims are attacking America.  Black people are killing cops and protesting America.  Why would they attack our wonderful child, America?  Quite simply... because America has been asking for it for at least half a century.  American has been threatening, bullying and killing Muslims for seventy years.  Americas has been threatening, bullying and killing black people for four hundred years.  We know America can be a belligerent, selfish a**hole but we tell ourselves he's just going through a phase.  The disheartening truth is America must be forced to outgrow this phase.  America has been trapped in the terrible two for a couple hundred years.  We have been in denial too long.  America has become addicted to power, intimidation, war and denial.  It is time we accepted the responsibility of our parenting decisions or we will be standing over the grave of a young America who was taken from us way too soon.

                                                   THE BLACK PROBLEM
      We do not have a black problem.  We have a white problem.  White America created this problem, intentionally.  We forced them here.  We separated them.  We sold them.  We beat them.  We fu@ked them.  We demoralized them.  We dehumanized them.  We made sure they lived in poverty.  We made sure they could not read or write.  When it was made legal to vote in 1865 (not 1965) America invented the literacy test so the blacks we intentionally made illiterate could not vote.  When America bored of this approach we invented a poll tax so the blacks we made poor could not afford to vote.  And when poll taxes and literacy tests were deemed illegal we simply killed them for attempting to register to vote.  That's right.  We killed black people for registering to vote... in the land of the brave, home of the free.  We did not imprison the first wave of black killers because they were performing a community service (especially in the South).  We did not police the murderers because some of the murderers were the police, often dressed in pointy hoods and sheets.  America refused to give the black race a voice in their own country.  When we were told to bus our white kids to their poor neighborhoods and sub-standard schools we acted as if it was the black folks responsibility they were poor and illiterate.  Our denial of the problem is mind-boggling.  America sold drugs to the black race, forced them to be addicted and them blamed them for becoming an addict.... both figuratively and literally.
     But America will say blacks were given their first taste of equality during World War II.  America allowed blacks to defend their country against the Nazis and Japanese.  The American military was the first large organization to be integrated... ten plus years before the Supreme Court ordered integration of the public schools.  That is what we were told.  The military stepped forward and did the right thing.  Or maybe the military found a great way to use black people as cannon fodder.  Many black military men were not allowed weapons and were given the most dangerous military occupations.  Black troops were segregated from white troops.  This does not sound like equality.  This does not sound like integration.  It sounds like a legal way to kill more black people.  Remember twenty years later when Muhammad Ali refused to be inducted and serve in Vietnam.  Ali knew the secret.  Ali wasn't buying the lie America was telling.
     Remember when America attempted to apologize for their actions and award the black man forty acres and a mule.  I remember hearing about it.  But truth is America never gave the black man forty acres and a mule.  Truth is America never apologized.  America just screwed the black man again and expected the black race to take it lying down... because they have no choice.  Those that complain get lynched.
     We like to pretend America gave the black race civil rights, in the sixties, because America finally found compassion.  This is the way America tells it.  But I think by now we should have learned, when it comes to America and black people, America loves to lie.  America gave in to some of the demands of the black people because the black folks, led by MLK and Malcolm X, discovered if you hit the white man in the wallet he will be more tolerant.  White people did not make concessions to the black man because he liked the black man.  America made concession because they love green more than they hate black.
     But America tells us, "We elected a black President.  See... we have progressed."  Sure that is the way America is telling the story.  Let's take a closer look.  The election of Barack Obama could have been the greatest racist plan ever devised.  The country was mired in an endless war in the Middle East and the country was on the verge of a complete financial collapse.  Hey, let's give it to the black guy.  This plan had to have been devised in the very bowels of  the KKK outhouse headquarters.  In the 1950's America was a shiny new gleaming Cadillac.  By 2008, the Cadillac of countries had faded paint, was covered in rust and the transmission was stuck in reverse. The solution:  Let's give America to the black guy.  That way when the Cadillac is up on blocks on the overgrown White House lawn America's newspaper headlines will read, "Crazy Ni**er drives America into the ground!"  America would have the excuse it needed to never have a black friend again.
     We, the parents of America, refuse to accept the reality that our offspring might be a sociopath.  Sure from time to time America feeds the poor and houses the homeless but America also seems to enjoy intimidating, threatening, injuring and killing the less powerful inside our own borders.  We pretend we do not understand why some black people have decided to kill cops... we understand.  We fully understand.  The black community has pleaded with us for centuries regarding the abuse at the hands of police officers.  We have seen it play out on television in the fifties, sixties and seventies.  Now in the 21st century we see it play out on our phones.  Nothing has changed... except the response of a few black people.  They have decided to fight back... what was their other option?

                                                      THE TERRORIST PROBLEM
     Once a young America, after a summer abroad in World War I, learned there were hordes of other people in the world we could possibly rule over our baby's post-college career was discovered.  Following a bump in the road with the Great Depression our sweet college boy was able to pursue his career dreams... building an American empire.  This plan began with America's negotiated entrance into World War II from 1939-1941.  America began dismantling the British empire prior to entering the World War.  America likes to tell us he had compassion for Britain and it's allies,  If that is true why did we not enter WWII in 1939?  Why did we wait until England was near defeat before entering the war?  Because that was the plan.  We waited until the European war began to affect us and had brought England to it's knees.  Our indifference allowed the creation of a perfect storm where our entrance into the war would cause the destruction of the British Empire and the creation of the American Empire.  This destruction and creation would continue throughout the war as America would direct the carving up of post-war Europe and the removal of British/French rule from India and the Middle East.  Once the war ended a young, brash, confident, arrogant and immensely powerful America began implementing it's plan of intimidation both politically and militarily over the Middle East.  The graphic below outlines some of these tactics.
   

    
     As you can see from the graphic America has interfered with the Middle East since the end of World War II in many forms from CIA intervention to direct military intervention.  America has held many in the Middle East under their thumb since the end of the war.  American has used the region and it's people to serve it's needs, often to the detriment of the native people.  These strong-arm and hypocritical tactics from a Christian nation have not set well with the Islamic people of the region.  This culminated, most notably, in the government overthrow by the Ayatollah Khomeini and the subsequent taking of American hostages.  These actions would introduce modern terrorist tactics to the American people.
     Yet what do we do as the parents of a selfish, controlling, self-serving and murderous America?  We deny it is America's fault.  It is not our child.  He is a sweet boy.  He sent aid to the victims of the typhoon in Asia.  He sent food to the starving people in Starvania.  We pretend we are unaware (and some are... but not after reading this) of his oppressive and murderous past.  Why would any one want to hurt our adorable, flag-waving, God-fearing America.  He goes to church every Sunday.  He wears an American flag on his lapel.  He is a good kid.  He's just misunderstood.  He really has a good heart.
     The radical Muslim extremists terrorize America because they have been enslaved, ignored and murdered by Christian Americans for seventy years.  Primarily they attack now.... because it continues now.  At some time if you want to protect your child you had better teach him to leave others alone.  If he is going to enter another's back yard wielding a deadly weapon eventually others are going to strike back.  This is where we are at.
     So how do we respond as the parents of America?  We do what every horrible, ineffective parent I have ever seen does... we ignore the past.  We pretend the present incident occurs in a vacuum.  We pretend nothing proceeded it and America's actions did not lead to this inevitable outcome.  We pretend we are undeserving of the ill feelings and attacks.  We pretend our child is innocent.  We pretend others attack because they hate our freedom or our religion.  No... they hate our control, invasion and murder of their citizens in their country.  America has arrogantly sauntered through the world demeaning and dehumanizing blacks since we forced them on to the boats and through the Middle East since we realized they had natural resources we could exploit.
     It is time we abandoned our parental denial of our child's actions.  It is only making the problem worse.  It is time we placed America in time out while we develop a new plan.  America is in danger.  It is our fault.  Our denial of his actions have contributed to his dysfunctional behaviors.  We can no longer act like he hasn't done this before.  We can no longer innocently ask whey he did that.  We can no longer act surprised when he is expelled from school.  If you didn't know why your son is hated by so many around the world... now you know.  If you did know... it is time to abandon denial and start the long road to recovery.
     This is your intervention America.  Your addiction to intimidation, power, selfishness, white superiority, religious supremacy, murder and war is killing you and us.  It is time we made amends to the world and became a member of the worldwide community.  We may not be afforded a relapse and many will not trust in our recovery and stop acting against us for a while.  We created this situation... now it is on us to fix it.  PARENTS TEACH YOUR CHILDREN!!!