Because of the great gap that exists in this country between image and reality. Because of the Great American Image Machine.

The American image machine, as a dispenser of high-test snake oil, was up and running with the Republic, when the Federalists turned a bunch of fractious colonies into a single nation bound by tight banking rules and bailout systems for military debt, while paying lip service to the rights of states and the American small farmer. The Puritan mindset of early America at that time was knitted into the slogans of the revolution and sold to generations of immigrants who needed a symbol to rally round.

Here is the snake oil: America is the land of the free, upholder of liberty and religious freedom, savior of the oppressed, and the world's most potent democracy. It is also, despite signs to the contrary, a land where deep down, girls are wholesome, god-fearing and chaste, and boys are adventurous, sporty, and moral.

The trouble is, the Great American Image is a sham. Far from being a beacon of freedom, our great democracy is, and has for generations been run by corporate interests--the organizations (like the Federalists' banks) who can ante up enough money to elect politicians to do their bidding. This is just as true of Democrats as it is of Republicans; in fact, the alleged difference between them is part of the scam.

Our press, which though conformist was traditionally at least diverse, is now largely controlled by an oligopoly consisting of eight or nine giant media corporations.

Our sanctimonious claim to uphold liberty worldwide is belied by our history. Remember, Europeans essentially exterminated the native inhabitants of this land to turn it into "America." The U.S., in the Philippines, directly or indirectly caused the deaths of over 200,000 natives, proving itself as brutal a colonial power as Britain or France.

Even now we support bloodthirsty dictators when it suits our interests, we subsidize ruthless neocolonial powers like Israel, we trade happily with other neocolonial powers such as Russia, China and Indonesia. Our sweet land of liberty, the richest nation in the world, consistently refuses to eradicate its 13 to 17 percent poverty rate because, frankly, the corporations that rule us need cheap labor to hire and fire at will, depending on market conditions.

Sexually speaking, we live with a contradiction just as flagrant. Though much of America is still taught that Frank Hardy and Nancy Drew are the moral role models to which we all must aspire, the reality, we know, is different. Most kids smoke pot. Girls give blow jobs with such alacrity that most, like Bill Clinton, no longer consider fellatio real sex. The vast majority of US kids get laid before marriage, and 95 percent of all Americans enjoy premarital sex. An increasing number don't bother getting married at all.

But the thing is, we can't accept the contradictions. I think it's because we are still are still a nation of immigrants, and on some insecure cultural plane we fear that tearing down one part of the image will result in everything crashing down on our heads: apple pie, Mom, God, the Union; the big corporations on which we all rely for credit to buy flat-panel TVs, iPhones, and late-model cars.

So we repress reality, we repress our self knowledge--and as any shrink will tell you, the vast energy needed to repress tends to result in extreme, even bizarre actions. Such as McCarthyism. Such as the sad anger-mongering of Neo-cons and Tea Party types. Such as our fetishistic worship of the American flag--and the opprobrium visited on women who, in defiance of Nancy Drew, bare their breasts in public.

Should we care? Most definitely. Such repression keeps us from understanding both our faults and our true virtues. Extreme actions can, politically speaking, spawn extreme regimes. Despite hard economic times, we still live in the richest epoch ever known; but what will happen when the world runs dry of oil, fresh water, and other natural resources? America--the deep America--despite its faults and its belief in snake oil has been a relatively tolerant place for those who come here for shelter. That has always been the core of our genius and our pride as a people. But much of that tolerance relied on abundance. What will happen to tolerance--what extremism must we endure--when there is no longer enough to go around?