Nothing's Changed?

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During one of my recent travels I met a young American college graduate in his early 20s. He was from a small town not too far from where I’m from. We carried on a conversation for a while and agreed to meet later for a beer. Later that evening, over our beer, while the sun set, I asked him how things have changed since I left the States, almost 10 years ago. He paused for a moment. I thought, as I watched him thinking of what he was going to say, he was trying to think of the most important aspect of American life that had changed in the last 10 years.

He then said, “nothing’s changed.”

What a conversation stopper that was. “Nothing’s changed” in the United States in the last ten years? Are there two different Americas? One I read about everyday, and the one he knows, because he lived Stateside until very recently, one that hasn’t changed since 1999?


How can that be? I thought to myself. Here’s what appears to be a bright college educated student. He comes from a good family. He’s not one of the losers one hears so much about now. He’s clean cut, not one of those backpackers I run into so often. A good looking young man, in a foreign country on a short vacation before he goes back to work in another country not his own. In other words, he’s traveled some, with more than just bookish learning. And yet he believes that nothing’s changed in the United States in the last ten years? I was incredulous.

Remarkably, I didn’t say anything for a few minutes. I have a habit of speaking on impulse in situations like this and have been working hard to break myself of what I consider to be an undesirable trait of mine; speaking my mind to those who are not capable of receiving reality. I work in a foreign country and don’t often have the chance to talk with decent fellow Americans, and when I do, I’m often amazed at how unwilling they are – no matter what their age - to listen to anything they detect as “negative” or bad news, or one of those many politically correct topics that have become so taboo. I was doing my best to keep quiet, to carefully consider my words.

Finally, I said, “what about 9/11?”

I’m coming to realize that 9/11 never was a big event for many Americans and even if it was, it has faded from the memory of most, particularly young people like this young man. He was, after all, back in 2001, only about 14 or maybe 15 years old. I could have said “What about the war in Iraq?” or “What about the war in Afghanistan?” Or “What about the “war on terrorism?”

But, according to this young man, despite all these major events, an attack by the US government against its own people, which was then used to launch three interconnected wars, all on false pretenses, "nothing’s changed."

I could have asked, “what about the collapse of the Wall Street banks and the hundreds of billions of dollars in borrowed bailout monies, monies that you and others of your age, are going to be expected to pay back, one way or another. Isn’t that a change?”

But I didn’t. I’ve come to realize that the Internationalists behind 9/11, the bogus "war on terrorism" and the costly and losing wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, were able to successfully sell those and so many other horrific changes to the American people. The proof of their success was sitting right next to me on a bench 7000 miles from home. People just like this young man, because of the all pervasive news media that they are dependent on for their information, is controlled by these Internationalists, their news is spoonfed to them, but only that information which their controllers want them to know, don't realize what is happening. These news outlets filter the news through their Jewish lenses, influencing what Americans think about the world around them, to such a degree, that this young man, even though college educated, thought that in the last decade, 10 years that I believe has brought some of the most profound, far reaching and perhaps irreversible changes to the country I love, thinks “nothing’s changed.”

I didn't say it then, but I'm saying it now. How wrong you are young man. Much has changed in the last 10 years. You are living proof.

When I left the States 10 years ago, I said to my family and anyone who would listen, “America’s finished.” The truth of that statement was brought from home and delivered to me by a young man while we sat together sharing a beer. Over thirty years separated us, but we were connected by two things, we’re both Americans and we’re both going to suffer from the changes that have come, in the last decade, to the United States.