The myth of us

Only in America can we take for granted that everyone should speak our language, follow our customs, celebrate our holidays, know our stories.

We make movies about the best of us, the myth of us, the ways of us and we send them out to the far corners of the earth as if they were gospel.

And perhaps because there are so many of them and perhaps because children always think what is not theirs is better and perhaps because we are so proud and the rest of the world so gullible, our ways have spread across the globe.

But that does not make them better -- or truer -- or anything else. It does make things easier for some of  us. So much easier that we begin to think we are superior, that our language is the "real" one, our ways the best ones, our stories the only ones that really count.

It goes far beyond patriotism.  We can be patriots without believing ourselves above everyone else. We can be patriots and still learn from what works for other countries, other people, other ways.

In a small town the people take on caricatures. They become the personification of kings and queens, bullies and bums and a country is no different. History will remember us for our kindness and caring, or it will remember us for our power and gold and most people would prefer that they and their families live in a kind and caring place.

Power and gold hold sway over those with choices and if the choices are for the good of all they will be kind and caring. Otherwise they will only be good for the handful of people who have the power and the gold.

It isn't hard to know who is who. Gold is as heavy as power when it is wielded for a few egos. Those people who feed the poor, care for the sick, teach the children, love their neighbors are like feathers blowing in the wind. The light shines through them and they rise above all others in the end.

But that is not the myth of us. The myth is that we all live on streets paved in gold with an orchestra playing our theme song in French horns and kettle drums and all we have to do is pry it from the earth and we will be kings.