(September 11, 9-11, ... Whatever. Thanks, kid (known only to the world as Josiah Cooper... dig the anger... "whaddya rebellin' about?" Remember the reply?)
911, 09-11-01, twin towers, WTC, NYC... whatever. Six years ago I was preparing to make a left turn into my office parking lot on about the 30th day of the most incredible, argentine-like clear blue skies when WBEZ almost laughingly reported that a plane had hit the world trade center. I went in, and asked if anyone had heard about the plane crash. Nobody had. A few minutes later a woman came into my office to say that the second tower had been hit and it "looks like terrorists."
Big Deep Sigh... I knew it from that moment. I even said it at that moment, "they're gonna run off with the till on this one." My recently arrived Argentine wife called frantic with the images on TV of the collapse. I got to a television a few hours later. I remember best a dust covered bond trader sobbing, "you can kill us, you can knock-down our buildings... but you cannot make us poor!" Yeah, whatever. They couldn't...
I got back to my office and even though it was all too goddamned cinematic for any of us to make sense of... my stupid attempt at reassuring everyone and myself was to say, "don't worry about terrorists. Worry about what we'll do to ourselves." Whatever.
You knew the fix was in when the whole country developed a steaming crush on NYC... although hours before it had been common knowledge that "every red-blooded American" hates the big apple like a gaucho hates la Capitál. Frontpages that morning all over the US told of Rumsfeld's imminent firing being delayed simply so he wouldn't be the shortest lived Sec'y of Defense in history. Rudy Guiliani was hiding his head in the shame caused by divorcing his wife in the press... before he had even bothered to mention it to the missus herself.
By the time prime-time tears had been shed for lower-Manhattan bond traders... every real New Yorker knew we were through the looking glass. Whatevah.
I spent 2 full years feeling like a Jew in 1930's Europe... (and wondering which one of the two kinds of Jews I was going to be... and wondering which of my family members would grieve and which would make excuses. "What a shame about Mike... welllll... you just can't walk around saying things like that!")
It's all been done now (short of news that we've begun bombing Iran.) Habeas corpus has been "suspended". The Geneva Conventions that we negotiated and enforced... are now optional. The dollar is in shambles... with the economy waiting to follow. The moral beacon that we would flick on to opiate our suppression abroad and dissent at home is now faded from all but memory. If there's a road back... it'll be a long one. Yesterday, the top US General refused to release figures on the war in Iraq... and the Democrat controlled committee refused to ask for them. Whatever.
La Argentina es mi hogar nuevo. If it's yours too... I wish you all the best. I'm feeling a little too old to feel the anger that Josiah is demonstrating... and a little too wised-up not to know how to direct it. A fellow student asked me last month why I immigrated here. Not knowing how to briefly sum up all the reasons behind such a decicion, I joked with the old saw, "para hacer la América." I'm more serious than I knew. I hope you are too.
...currently discussing the US presidential election campaign until Inauguration Day.
6 comments:
It's funny, Mike.
Many of our citizens have dreamt for years of living in your country. Now it's you who choose us.
Ironically, lots of Americans are welcomed here, but we are not welcomed up there.
Best,
S.
http://yanquimike.blogspot.com/2007/09/whatever.html
It's a funny world, indeed, Sub.
And I fear that it's going to get a lot funnier before it starts to return to something resembling normal.
Why do argentinos want to live in the US? Probably for a lot of different reasons. Not only that but the reasons probably change over time and different generational preferences.
Whatever those motivations I suspect that all of them were subject to one degree or another by the tremendous public-relations effort to make the US known to the world as a "moral beacon." The people in charge of that effort have apparently been fired. Yanquis don't even try anymore.
I can't explain the motivations of anybody other than me ...I even have trouble explaining my reasons.
But I'll tell you a big one: even after all the economic upheavals, I think that Argentina still holds her historic distinction of having a larger middle-class than all other latin-american countries combined.
To my mind, that distinction contributes to Argentina's particular character more than any other. The enormous presence of a middle-class used to contribute to the US's particular national character more than any other ...not so much now ...and the future doesn't look bright for it returning.
I hold some particular views on the middle-class as a result of my being a baby-boomer and my opinion that the m-c is/was an accident of the 20th century. I hope to write about those views here soon.
Thanks,
Mike
"Ironically, lots of Americans are welcomed here, but we are not welcomed up there."
Subjuntivo,
I'm an Argentine myself and when visiting the US, I have always been welcomed. Being welcomed or not has a lot to do with one's attitude. Many Argentines go there with the mentality that everything back home is better. The thing is they hold a grudge against Americans and want to give them a bad reputation. If you visit another country with such an arrogant attitude, don't expect any kind of special treatment.
Could it be that the problem lies not with Americans but with you? Sounds probable to me.
Gracias, Wo.
Maybe I'm wrong ...but I didn't get the idea that Subjunctivo was accusing ordinary yanquis of being rude or unfriendly. We yanqs are rather famous for our welcoming attitude regarding white people no matter where they are from.
I assumed that he was alluding to customs/immigration procedures.
Customs procedures used to be much more friendly and welcoming. Now they befit a fortress mentality ...for little or no reason, in my opinion. Immigration procedures are now so above and beyond the pale that I don't have the energy to describe the separations of spouses, children and parents (something that my wife and I were actually threatened with.)
You make a good point, tho. Anyone approaching another country with the attitude that the people and their government are inferior ...is asking for a unhappy visit.
As a tourist in the US I've always felt welcome up there. But then again, any country which economy depends in some points on tourism, knows that tourist are investors and must be treated with respect so they would come again.
Everybody knows and applies this concept, except Argentina and, maybe, France, or so I heard..
The question is, what if you go there for work. What if you are taking another american's job. We complain all the time here in Argentina when paraguayans and bolivians work for half the salary any other argentine asks for, and we blame them of ruining our economy.
Inmigration is always a problem, but it's not THE reason why our economy is going downward...
Wow. Noelia. You said a mouthful.
Once upon a time both labor and capital were constrained by national borders. Now money can flow freely into any country and the profits be repatriated... and any nation that tries to inhibit this flow will find itself isolated by the banks of the world.
People looking for work, however, still have to comply with the old rules. There's something not fair about that.
The economy feels like it's going downward but the figures show that Argentina's economy has grown as fast as China for the past 4 years in a row.
Someone is profiting handsomely.
What we are feeling is the disappearing of the middle class. That's something that has symbolized both Argentina and the US.
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