This morning I chatted (bavarder) with my French pen pal. I told my pen pal that J’ai honte de mon pays (I am ashamed of my country). She asked me why and I told her we were leaving another Vietnam behind us. I was referring to leaving the Vietnamese and others who helped us to the mercies of the Viet Cong and North Vietnamese Army. I think we should expect the religiously fueled Taliban to be even less generous. We have but to look at today’s Evangelical Christians who have no problem with overthrowing 230 years of Democracy for their own eccentric brand of prolife let-the-unmasked-children die kind of world.
I do blame Biden but there is so much blame to go around starting with George W Bush and his VP Dick Cheney. Last night I watched one of the old Republican commentators of that era Michael Gerson talking on PBS’s News Hour about our disgrace. As a spokesman for all the grand ideas of democratization back then he was shriveled up and shaking in a fury at how badly things have spun out of control. I told my pen pal I couldn’t bear to watch the news after that. I’ve been busy for the past five years preparing to return to France with the new language I’ve just begun to speak. It has been a godsend so I didn’t go mad watching our shitcicle of a President despoiling 230 years of American progress as he posted grifters, con men and suck-ups to critical positions across the federal government.
I found an article on Wikipedia that estimated 200,000 to 400,000 Vietnamese drowned on boats attempting to flee to America. Out-of-sight-out-of-mind! 42,000 have died stepping on old ordnance and landmines since the war’s end and countless children have been born with mental deficiencies because of Agent Orange. I will never regret protesting the war. But even as it ended I was ashamed of our leaving with our tail tucked between our legs. Doing it now as the world burns and people drop dead of a virus that Donald Trump tried to wash away with Clorox doesn’t make it any better.
J’ai honte de mon pays
