An epic that speaks not so much about the grandeur of America but about the shame of America as revealed in the awareness that what was meant for grace has become a disgrace.

"Only in America" is the title of a miniature article, less than a full page, in the "Reader's Digest" (July, 2004). In it the author observes that book publishers want to party like it's 1776, as evidenced in their publishing books on the Founding Fathers, a list that includes, David McCullough, John Adams, and Alexander Hamilton. Reflecting on this obsessiveness with that period the author said "Dead white men used to be uncool, but today we're in the grip of Foundermania." This blurb appeared at the end of the article: "Americans will eat 150 million hot dogs this July 4th." It prompted me to say, Only in America can there be this much obesity."

Only in America strikes me as being as American as apple pie. Driven to learn why I felt so uncomfortable and seized with consternation when I heard those three words, only in America, I began searching for the answer. In part, what follows is the answer I needed to know:
Only in America can a person become a Horatio, advancing from rags to riches, even if corruption is his closest ally;
Only in America can a recent immigrant to America, first or second generation, testify that he found freedom in America even though he or his ancestors may have
failed to work to bring freedom to the country he or his ancestors left, and who seems to be oblivious to the fact that many Americans whose ancestors came to America over two hundred years ago are much worst off than many of the people in the country he or his relatives left when they came to America;
Only in America can the rich get richer and the poor poorer with special assistance from the Government as expressed by one American President who soon after being elected purportedly said "If you are rich there's help on the way, but if you are poor that's just too damn bad," and a CEO can earn four, five or six hundred times as much money for his labor as an employee can earn working for the same company.
Only in America do people have freedom of speech and freedom of religion, even though the Pope and Billy Graham, a spiritual adviser to every U. S. president since President Harry Truman, travel to countries throughout the world and preach the Gospel according to Christianity;
Only in America can less than 5% of the population own over 90% of a country's wealth and not be threatened or made to divest themselves of most of that wealth because the people fear that the military and law enforcement agencies, including local police forces, will do what they primarily exist to do, protect, at any cost, the interests of wealthy people.BR>
So the next time you hear someone exuberantly exclaim "only in America" you may want to allow yourself to reflect on the aforementioned portion of this discourse and, even moreso, on the portion that is to folow:
Only in America can a country's largest retail outlet, in this case, Wal- Mart, sell products that for the most part have been made in China or another foreign country and receive praise from the buyers of those products.

Now, suffice that I interject a recent experience that I had while speaking to a group of people who I considered to be my peers, but only because we were born doing or before the Great Depression. During the question and answer period I was asked or, more correctly, admonished to "love America or leave it." Without hesitation, but politely, I told the man who described himself as a "super patriot," that, I do not love America, nor do I love baseball or the food that I consume each day. Continuing I said, "I love God, myself and some people." Then I let him know that I am an American, that I am glad to be an American and to live in America, that I am a Korean War veteran who served in the military for four years and one day, that I am a civil rights activist and a consciousness raising provocatuer. Finally, I said to him "I do not plan to love or leave America."

While I am focusing on only in America I consider that it is wisdom to take a look at the uniquely negative and dishonorable characteristics and distinctions of this entree phrase that is prefixably in its usage;
Only in America can citizens take pride in being the number one jailer of the world, having more people incarcerated, on parole and under the surveillance of the criminal justice (or, is it injustice?) system than in any other country, with the awareness that nearly half of those incarcerated are from a single ethnic group, in this case, African- Americans, who account for nearly half of those in prisons and jails even though their ethnic group makes up only 12% of the population of Americans;
Only in America can the homeless population and people living in abject poverty amout to one out of every seven persons even though their country is affluent and possesses nearly one-third of the wealth of the world, notwithstanding that its population is only 6% of the
world's population;
Only in America can a nation's Supreme Court, the same Court that ruled in the 1896 (108 years ago) "Plessy vs. Ferguson" case that segregation was constitutional, select a nation's president who was not the person who the people had elected with a majority vote and see the people majority accept the Court's unjust decision without taking direct action in pursuit of justice, including people who had fought on the battlefields in other lands to preserve the right to vote in America and homeland freedom fighters, brothers and sisters (black and white) who, particularly, in the nineteen sixties, witnessed their leaders being murdered by members of the Ku Klu Klan (Ku Kluxers) and other racists while they were fighting in America to secure the right to vote for African- Americans.
Only in America can National Parks have more foreign visitors than citizens from the country where these parks exist, with many of them, as can be observed when visiting the Grand Canyon, being people from Germany and Japan, notwithstanding the fact that both these countries lost the war and, significantly, today many Germans and Japanese are able to get away from their jobs where they work less than forty hours a week and take two vacations a year while many Americans working more than forty hours a week can hardly afford to take one vacation a year.

The "Only in America Eschatological Laundry List" is much longer than the one presented here but now readers can see in true perspective what the only in America phenomenon is, evaluate the content of the suffixes of this prefatory phrase and affix additional relevant suffixes to it. Opine when appropriate. Dare we strut with pride or gloat when shame and disgrace are the meanings of what is revealed. And dare that we think about what only in America means to and for those who have experienced American nightmares time and time again but not once the American Dream.

Copyright 2004 by Uriah J. Fields