“Love Letter to America,”
Dear Americans,
My name is Tomas David Schuman. I am what you may call a “defector” from the USSR. and I have a message for you: love you very much. I love all of you liberals and conservatives, “decadent capitalists” and “oppressed masses”. blacks and whites and browns and yellows, rednecks and intellectuals. For me you are the people who created a unique nation, country and society in the history of mankind, by no means a perfect one, but, let’s face it the most free, affluent and just in today’s world. am not alone in this love. People all over the Earth, whether they praise America or bitterly criticize her, look upon you as the only hope for mankind’s survival and the last stronghold of freedom. Some may not think in these idealistic terms, but they certainly enjoy the fruits of your civilization, often forgetting to be grateful for them. Millions of people in the so-called “socialist camp™ or in the “Third World” literally owe their lives to America.
As a war-time child, survived partly thanks to such “decadent capitalist” (as the Soviets say) things as “Spam” meat, condensed milk and egg powder that were supplied to my country by the USA through the lend-lease program of World War II. In the Soviet Union we secretly but proudly called ourselves “the Spam generation”. Too prosaic? Who cares about “Spam’ in today’s USA, apart from “underprivileged welfare recipients? Well, for me these foods are not merely the nostalgic delight of my troubled childhood, but rather, a symbol of love from a friend when I was in need. No amount of communist propaganda against America has ever been able to convince me that the United States out to colonze and exploi will tell you many people have been more than willing to be “exploited” the American way. For what other reason have thousands risked their lives, gone to unimaginable troubles, left behind their families their motherland and traditional ways of life to come to America? Have you ever heard of “illegal aliens” risking their lives crossing the border at midnight into Socialist USSR? Or the “boat people” swimming oceans and drowning by the thousands just to reach the shores of Communist China? Or defectors like me, leaving behind relative affluence and risking bullets in the back in order to join the “progressive workers paradise” in Russia? No, we all come here to America, obviously willing to be “exploited by capitalists” and enjoy *oppression” together with you. Because we believe and KNOW — America IS A BETTER place.
I am writing this not to please you with words you want to hear. The rest of my message may be more unpleasant to you than even Communist propaganda, or more offensive than the speeches of “leaders” in Kremlin. But as a true friend of America, I want to help.
My dear friends, think you are in big trouble. Whether you believe it or not, YOU ARE AT WAR. And you may lose this war very soon, together with all your affluence and freedoms, unless you start defending yourselves. I hope you have noticed on your color televisions that there is in fact war going on right now all over this planet. This war has many faces, but it’s all the same it’s war. Some call it “national liberation’ “, some title it “class struggle” or “political terrorism’ Others call it “anticolonialism’ or “*struggle for majority rule”. Some even come up with such fancy names as “war of patriotic forces” or peace movement”. I call it World Communist Aggression.
I know what I am talking about, because was on the side of the aggressor before I decided to take YOUR side. I do not believe KNOW that in this war no one is being “liberated, decolonised or made equal”, as Soviet doctrine proclaims. You may notice, if you give yourselves the trouble to observe, that the only “equality” and . . .
