Like most immigrants, I came to the U.S. for many reasons. If you sliced into these reasons what you’d find at the core is this: I came to the U.S. for prosperity. I don’t remember struggling back home, but I believe the life I have today was exactly what my family wished for me when my uncle brought me to America. Life is not all rosy, but I’m very thankful.
But I’d like to think I’m also a man with a heart full of love, compassion, and deep concern for the well-being of all mankind. I especially detest bullying of any kind. I’m not sure why, but this is something that really eats at me. The bigger the bully the more seethed the anger it stirs in me.
This week’s been tough. Like having a nightmare in a 5-star hotel.
In the midst of struggling to understand this US-Israeli war on Iran and my deep seethed opposition to it, something unsettling has been brewing in my mind:
We, all of us in the U.S. enjoying the fruits of her labor, are complicit in all the not so rosy things the government and its agents do around the world. At best, we may be hypocrites for opposing the means when we cherish the end.
I mean, exactly these things America does are what makes it the richest country in the world. That is why we flock to it, and once here, would hardly trade it for somewhere else. It is exactly why we know it can afford $20 minimum wage (while many around the world don’t get $1 a day.) McDonald’s is luxury many-where but here.
It’s the biggest open secret that the U.S. barely makes anything anymore. Yet its GDP continues to be the top in the world. No longer the Fords and IBMs, the biggest American companies are now financial companies (that trade in other countries’ labor and bring the bounty to the U.S.) because the dollar is the world’s currency of exchange. Which is why U.S. economic sanctions are so devastating to other countries. Because the U.S. can easily destabilize any economy it wants, people bring their money here for safekeeping. It turns out when you are at its mercy, ironically the safest place to keep your valuables is with the mob.
It’s the unfortunate reality. If U.S. was not the way it is, well it’d be Canada. Not saying anything bad about Canada, but…well it’s no U.S.
Like any racket, to keep it going, you may have to kill people here and there—just enough to remind the living that you mean business. Like do you really think Saudi Arabia, Egypt, Oman… aren’t going to bend the knee (after Iraq, Afghanistan, Syria and now Iran?) Or Colombia, Cuba, Brazil, Mexico are not shaking in their boots (after Venezuela?) When they do, they pay up. And the U.S coffers grow.
When they take the oil in Venezuela, as they did in Iraq, oil prices will fall. And we will all celebrate in small ways—with the room in our budgets. If Iran falls and the stock market rises, U.S. companies will thrive and increase their tax payments. In turn we will all celebrate—when we see our 401(k) balances or all the social programs the government may now afford and fund.
What then does this mean for a simple citizen invested in America’s success but highly critical in the tactics it uses to sustain and safeguard that success? I am not sure. All I know is I was on a beach in the Dominican Republic when the first bombs fell on Iran. And it did cross my mind what it might mean for my job and 401(k).
I guess just a reminder that none of our hands are all clean. Perhaps that is precisely the reason we should continue to speak loudly… and pray there are other ways to grow without the blood. Just because you grew up in a butchery doesn’t mean the forest cannot sustain you.
