Metaphors for the old and Jung.

An allegory (as I see it), via monk. Let's see...American soldier sticks his hand where it shouldn't be, and gets it bitten off, so he shoots the (attacker!) for daring to protect himself and home. Yeah, that pretty much sums up our whole foreign policy right there.

Listen up G.I Joe: This is a nice example of why world hates us. No really, ask anybody. We are viewed as nothing more than a colony of snot-nosed bombastic teenagers; which is startlingly accurate. If you assigned a human age to cultures around the globe relative to their years on earth, America's three hundred years would put us somewhere around the time a person begins to sprout pubic hair. Now think about the most obnoxious teenager you have ever met; a loud, rude, selfish, mean-spirited, moody, bulling know-it-all with the attention span of a gnat, whose obsession with clothes, cars and chicks is rivaled only by their need for immediate gratification; then make that teenager an orphan whose parents died in a plane crash leaving behind 400 trillion dollars, enough weapons to blow up the world ten times, and the deed to the universe. Got the image? Thats what the rest of the world sees when they think "America".

Historically the elder cultures, well into their 'statesman' years, have been able to sit back and giggle at our 'athlete' behavior. Sort of like my mom rolling her eyes when I dyed my hair black, stuck it straight out, and wore powder make up and red lipstick to look like Robert Smith. The Revolutionary War era games, "So you want to be independent now, huh?" kind of behavior that's adorable with perspective. But now that the teen cry of "You can't tell me what to do!" has become our warrior mantra, many will agree it's time we're taken down a notch, need to have the car keys confiscated and be sent to our room. Listen to your elders. If you don't they will not be able to guide and/or protect you and you will be left to do battle with other splinter factions of culturally relative teenagers who are just as clueless and childish and fucked up as you are.

You know those two big holes in lower Manhattan Joe? The fault of adolescent bravado, the stuff that makes you think you can stick your hand in a tiger's cage without any consequences. We don't know it all, and the world is not our possession. A few thousand people downtown would be getting back from lunch right now had we been able to absorb that concept. I know, I know, it's kinda hard to listen with the MTV up so loud and all that shopping to do.