The Promised Land

"I want my America back, I want my country back."
Leave it to Bruce Springsteen to put my feelings into words. Nice, precise, understandable words. He said this from the stage at a voter registration drive in Philadelphia on Saturday. He said a great many other things that I agree with, but this was the sentiment that has been buzzing in my head for the past eight years. The Pinhead Doctrine has made me embarrassed and ashamed of my country. Again, I defer to the Boss: "...we remain, for many, a house of dreams. One thousand George Bushes and one thousand Dick Cheneys will never be able to tear that house down."
We have lived through the terrible times when we told people in foreign countries that we were Canadian to avoid being harassed or worse. We have lived through the horror of Katrina, when we had to remind our government that the people clinging to trees as the levees gave way were not the victims of some foreign catastrophe. They were Americans. We are Americans.
It is truly amazing, in hindsight, to imagine that we maintain our relative standing in the world even though this administration has done so much to undermine it. The country that Bruce Springsteen sings about, that land of hope and dreams, still exists. At times those dreams seem like they are just a cruel hoax, but where else could they exist but here in the United States of America?
There's diamonds in the sidewalk the's gutters lined in song
Dear I hear that beer flows through the faucets all night long
There's treasure for the taking, for any hard working man
Who will make his home in the American Land