weiner soldier

Australia is the only country I’ve ever gone to outside of the U.S. and I’ve spent much of this year there and what I will say is that the biggest culture shock for me was and what still astounds me day in and day out in that country is how completely dominated they are by American culture and American identity as such. It is beyond anything I could have ever imagined. They don’t have a national identity anymore. It doesn’t exist. Not at scale at least. I think BAP has talked about this broadly more recently, but every cultural pillar and outlet of theirs is just overwhelmingly imported US culture. It goes so deep it leaves me without words to explain it. My jaw has been dropped since I first stepped foot on the soil and I have never been able to pick it up since. And to see that they are actively hostile towards me for being a non self-flagellating American is even more insane because they are fish in water with America and American identity through in through in all but name. How they don’t see the absurdity and irony in it all is beyond me, but I clearly underestimated America’s totalizing and undisputed power before I left it for the first time.