I’ve spoken of the shining city all my political life, but I don’t know if I ever quite communicated what I saw when I said it. But in my mind it was a tall proud city built on rocks stronger than oceans, wind-swept, God-blessed, and teeming with people of all kinds living in harmony and peace, a city with free ports that hummed with commerce and creativity, and if there had to be city walls, the walls had doors and the doors were open to anyone with the will and the heart to get here. That’s how I saw it and see it still. And how stands the city on this winter night? More prosperous, more secure, and happier than it was eight years ago. But more than that; after 200 years, two centuries, she still stands strong and true on the granite ridge, and her glow has held steady no matter what storm. And she’s still a beacon, still a magnet for all who must have freedom, for all the pilgrims from all the lost places who are hurtling through the darkness, toward home.
There are many reasons why I am here sporting my Russian accent instead of speaking perfectly good Russian back in Ukraine. Over the years most of the immigrants try to justify their decision to leave their home country and settle in a new, sometimes radically different place. I didn’t hear Reagan’s speech back in 1989 but the sentiment he expressed is one of the reasons my and many other families left everything and came here to start over. We just wanted to be a part of the “shining city” which seemed even more beautiful from Behind the Iron Curtain.
The fact that reality turned out to be slightly different only goes to credit one of the greatest PR jobs in history which managed to convince many people inside this country (who had only seen other countries on TV) and abroad that this is the greatest country in the world. On many accounts it is. On some other ones it isn’t. Majority of people who come here choose to stay, so there must be a reason. After years of living here I am still surprised that many things seem to work in spite of people who are trying to sabotage them. This could be corporations lining up to rip people off with false advertisements, dangerous products, dismal customer service; or banks blowing up the mortgage bubble knowing in advance that money won’t be repaid; or government employees mistreating the very people who pay their salaries. Then there are people who knowingly intrude in other people’s lives, giving away freedoms, dumbing down kids, destroy education systems for the sake of unachievable goals. I see these things every day and they worry me. American people seem to have lost their critical thinking, they are too trusting, they can’t read between the lines and the people they trust are either unqualified, stupid and untrained, or just plain criminals. I came here to stay but these people are slowly but surely drilling holes in the “granite ridge” Reagan was talking about and are knocking down the base from underneath the “shining city”.
With this long introduction out of the way I will start a series of short posts about things that bother me. I started writing this few days ago and it wasn’t coming along as easily as I thought it would until today….
At work we have an internal chat application similar to AIM, YM or Google Talk. It has a limited amount of smiley’s being a business tool. People can request additional graphics and once in a while the programmers would add them to the list. Few days ago they added this one.
Immediately on the Company’s support messaging board 4 (four) people posted something like: “I love horses and I am offended by horse abuse.” Despite about 50 (fifty) messages such as “get a life”, or “get another job” the smiley was quickly removed. What bothers me here is that the people who are offended are not just exercising their right to free speech. Nowadays, the words “I am offended” are code words for lawsuit, complaint, lots of hand wringing which potentially translates into monetary losses/hassle for the company condoning the offense. Much easier is to back down and pacify overly sensitive person. Situations like this make us look over the shoulder before we say something, many not so offensive before words are off limits, we can’t keep a totally legit non-pornographic copy of the swimsuit edition of the Sports Illustrated on our desk, we can’t even have a smiley depicting beating a dead horse. The joke here is that the freedom of speech – one of the fundamental freedoms is not being supressed by the government, our own citizens are doing it to themselves because they love horses too much, or whatever else they choose to be offended about. In other countries people are still arrested and killed for their right to free speech, we apparently have so much of it that we can’t handle it.
I don’t want to so I will pause until the next installment which coincidentally will be much shorter.
You’re right, Meesha. One only need look at this primary election. Racism and sexism charges were tossed back and forth like tennis balls. I am so glad I don’t have to play the politically correct game at the office these days.
Well said. Kudo’s for the animal abuse moticon. Peta will be contacting you.
[...] tried to write about things that concern me but the posts come out long, winded and accompanied by pompous titles. I will instead try to [...]