Dear sLOVEnia,
I suspect that given your lovely name and reverence for poets, you have received many letters such as this over the course of your 20 years as an independent nation. Thus, you will quickly recognize it for what it is. A love letter, to tell you how ardently and completely I admire and and love you.
From the moment I stepped off your quiet and beautifully colored Adria airlines, into your immaculately clean, granite-floored airport, took in your I Feel sLOVEnia welcome sign, and wondered what all those people were doing socializing in an airport waiting-terminal kava café, I knew that you were a unique country.
And yet, these superficial traits would prove to be only the beautiful wrapping for the true aim of my long-term affection for you. Because it is your people, (and your government’s policies), that make you so attractive as a country.
Our year together has helped me to understand that your people’s eyes possess a special magnetic attraction for other human eyes, their palettes possess a unique affinity for café kavas, ice cream and Lashko Darks, sipped slowly over a small table with other relaxed and often jubilant humans, along riversides, in grocery stores, parking lots, alleyways, and castles, and that their ears have an unusual aversion to cell phones.
These special characteristics, along with the priority you give to your pedestrians, your children’s education, the arts, your food, your forests, and your hair, make it clear that what truly separates you from other (corporate controlled) countries is that you still have a thriving human element in your heartland. You are a unique blend of Socialism and Capitalism, and have somehow managed to keep the social in Socialism, while driving out the capital from Capitalism. Your human element is surpassed only by your 54.9% tax rate on people earning more than $100,000 and your 60% tax rate on people earning more than $300,000. Like your people’s regard for their own country, your tax rate is the highest in the western world.
And when having the chance to meet your doctors and participate in your socialized medical care, I realize that somehow you have even managed to keep the care in healthcare , while asking only 1.2% of your citizens’ income for (as compared with 6% in the U.S.) for this modern world medical care.
Whether it’s the way your people’s hair matches your Krofi’s apricot filling, the way the grey color of your socialist buildings matches your politics, the way your rate of violence matches your tolerance for guns, or the way your blue skies match the waters in your 87 health spas, you are a beautiful country.
When I am with you sLOVEnia, in your cafes, reading your government’s website, looking your people in the eye, or breathing your greenhouse gas-free air, I feel alive, invigorated, human. And when I think of your giant sperm and egg light show on Preseren Square at Christmas-time, I brim with bodily excitement.
I realize ours is an unusual match. Countries don’t often pair off with people. But as Boethius would say (and your own laws do as well), “Who would give a law to lovers? Love is unto itself a higher law.”
I hope that such high praise for you will not make you question my sincerity. Love of course, is best served by focusing on the positives rather than the negatives. A love letter which included problems such as a lover’s unnaturally orange hair, the frigidity of your winters, a propensity for horsemeat and cabbage, or an obsession with foot cleanliness, would hardly encourage requited love .
So, it is with great adoration and hope, that I ask you sLOVEnia, to return with me to the United States. Pack a bag with reckless abandon and throw caution to the wind.
Keep your luggage light, as America has most everything you will need. Diversity, courage, tolerance, a profound openness to new ideas – we have it all. Just throw in your sanity, a book of poems, your respect for the common good (over corporations), and your policy on greenhouse gases. Oh, and a dozen Krofi in your carry –on. And a maybe light bulb or two. We’re trying to outlaw those in our country.
And don’t worry about bringing any money. It’s much easier to get rich in the U.S., than it is in your country. We tax the poor instead of the rich. We rob from the common good, to make people rich. It’s a bit odd, but it all works out (for that top 5%) in the end.
All the money in America does come with a price tag of its own though. It makes it a bit harder to find those human elements, like economic safety, leisure time, and social connectedness – you know, things money can’t buy. But since you’re a country, I doubt you will even notice the lack of a human focus.
America is quagmired in the abyss of things money can buy. . . . . . and the 24 hour news cycle. Our children know Ronald, but not Orwell, they listen to Justin Bieber, but don’t have a voice of their own voice, they know their Facebook self, but not their self-potential, and they are fed violent video games, but don’t even wretch when eating McDonalds. Our COrPOraTions have used their C, two Os, P and a T, to co opt all that we hold sacred. Our health, our food, our leisure time, our government. Even our donuts. Unlike your one and ubiquitous Krofi, we have 43 different types of donuts. And we eat them, not in a kava café with friends, but while driving, with two legs on the coffee, one hand on the donut and the other on a cell phone.
And that’s where you come in sLOVEnia. In the U.S. we need your way of making policy based on the people’s needs, rather than the corporation’s greed. We need your 20-20 vision for a green, humanity-oriented and citizen-focused government agenda. Your mindful, disciplined, and long-term approach to the important things in life, like the future. Your 10 year, 20-20-20 plan (20% less energy usage, 20% reduction in greenhouse gases, 20% of energy from renewable sources) for economic, environmental, and national security, could serve as the model for an American 20 year, 50-50-50 plan --- 50% more kava cafés, and 50% more Krofis, in all 50 of our states. In the U.S. we know that money (and unfettered corporate power) is the root of our problems, and only the counterweight of human connectedness, via long hours in kava cafes, is the answer.
So sLOVEnia, that is my best argument as to why you, as a country, should come away to America with me, a human. With your strong government-for-the-people, I would never again have to worry about Archer Daniel Midlands at my breakfast table, tanned Congressmen with hidden global warming agendas, or those pedophile-looking Koch brothers preying on children and their teachers.
Countries and humans can have loving and long-term relationships, living long and peaceful lives together. I see it every day . . . . . . right here in sLOVEnia.
With reverence for you, sLOVEnia,
and for all countries that work to brighten the future of humanity.
Silence
