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Want to stop terrorism? Uphold the American Ideals!!!!
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UMAH-Universal Momvement Against Hypocrisy!
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"We must not let our rulers leave us with perpetual debt, or profusion and servitude."
-Thomas Jefferson
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COLONIZER AMERICA?
“Every revolution, in time will put on the robes of the tyrants it deposed.”
-Barbara Tuckman
Anyone with understanding, appreciation and willingness for preservation of America should have the courage to freely question, analyze and evaluate its direction at anytime. After all, in the history of Western democracy is freedom to question was what Socrates gave his life for and the birth of America was called “An Experiment in Democracy.” It follows that, like any scientific experiment we should periodically evaluate our direction in the light of new findings.
When Thomas Jefferson said “God forbid if this nation goes without a revolution for twenty years’ he was not naïve to prescribe physical and bloody revolution. In fact at other times he elaborated the idea by saying that a society without exchange of ideas will stink like standing water without periodical agitation. There lies the secret of constant return of the tyrants in the history-persecution, banishment and extermination of people for their innovative ideas.
By allowing the erosion of our values we have increasingly become like a ship in a stormy sea with non-functional or dysfunctional navigating instruments. Without those instruments our ship, sooner or late is bound to sink. There is absolutely no reason why we should let America revert to colonial mentality when all erstwhile colonial powers have abandoned that notion or modified their operation to match the changes in the world. As an American citizen not born in America and not willing to take good things in America for granted, I have taken it upon myself to join millions of decent fellow Americans to revive this nation’s values and once again make it the kind of world leader that was meant to be. My biggest motivation is the first-hand knowledge of and the love of American public that is taken for a ride against its will by a minority whose historic root lies in taking advantage of the decent majority. As a follower of Jefferson I am going to devote a larger part of my discussion to connect the failure of America to its failure in educating and informing the American public to think for themselves rather than simply doing what they are told. This is defiance of this paraphrased idea of Ralph Waldo Emerson- “The most important task of education is to teach the public how to think.” Let us do some fundamental evaluations and find out what we have missed:
Education. A no nonsense public education and well-informed public were the most basic requirements of birth and survival of America. I like my readers to know here that when I refer to public education I am not denying the contribution of the minority elite that are capable of seeking knowledge regardless of quality of public education and the system of government. I am referring to the majority of the people without whose contributions America has remained as a “sleeping giant” towards making an all-out progress rather than a consuming nation with emphasis on development of weapons of mass destruction in order to bully the world into submission.
According to Longman Dictionary, ‘individual is the basic tenet of the Western Cultures’. Alas, public education in America has changed from one of the best to one of the worst in the world. The proof of this failure is reflected in general public illiteracy especially in science, math, history and geography; highest rate of substance abuse, the idea of mindless consumption and ‘shot-till-you drop” for happiness, violence and substitution of ballots with bullets for settling their disputes. The fact that the young people refuse to fight wars is fascinating. This degree of misinformation and its adverse effects in the middle of ocean of knowledge and hub of technology in America is unconscionable. No, these are not the fault of parents, teachers, or schools. It is a combination of these and mostly due to misappropriation of money for education and mismanagement in a way with the ultimate goal that the American public becomes submissive and consumers.
Finally, we should recognize how the destructive force of ignorance, arrogance and greed is preventing the dividends of our marvelous technology to reduce the cost of education. In other words as we spend more we educate less. Have you noticed that while the cost of all electronic instruments for fun and games that have little or nothing to do with a meaningful life goes down constantly, the cost of education especially higher education goes up? In this age of computers almost all education could be cheaply conducted in cyberspace. One majorproblem is that the lion’s share of skyrocketing fees goes to make most colleges and universities like country clubs equipped with bowling alleys, video arcades, bars and other distractive measures to make sure that love of learning does not take root. Contrast these with the America’s founders who were mostly self-taught.
Government of a few. This is another sad chapter in self-destruction of America. Gradually, after the glorious days of revolution the American public lost interest in participatory democracy. My curiosity and contact with many fellow Americans have convinced me that the main reason for their apathy is that they have been lied to and betrayed by most politicians in both parties.
That explains one the lowest voter turnouts from local to national elections. In contrast, in developing countries the people willingly give their lives to have the privilege of voting. The increasing role of money and wealth in politics has excluded many decent Americans from having a voice in their government. Increasingly more decent Americans, not only no financial means, but even with medium income cannot afford to donate to the politicians’ insatiable appetite for supposedly campaigning, much less to run for public office. Why should we close our eyes to this exclusionary policy and blame the repressive regimes for doing the same? We have reached the point where with the possible exception of the local elections the public is left with little or no voice in its destiny because it has no guts to digest the degree of corruption. Add to that election rigging, gerrymandering, tapping with electronic voting devices, surveillance and robbing the people of their privacy and you will see a colonial system and one-man rule in progress-that this nation abandoned some two hundred years ago.
Just consider the disparity in separation of powers and how the president can torpedo the legislative and judicial branches. If there is one nation in the world in which the president’s position should be ceremonial, that country should be America, but is it? All indications are that one-man rule has practically returned to America.
Much of our inefficiency is that we are trying to administer one-man rule with democratic government institutions. Another legitimate question one could ask is why presidential candidates spend millions of dollars to tell the people what they will do if elected! Isn’t this indication that a president can promise actions that have not passed by legislators and reviewed by judicial system? And while we are at it how can a president have the power of so many appointees who often have more power than other branches, not to mention the fact that they have purchased their position through ‘highest bidder’ process. A good final question is, are we having George Bush as president or King George VII?
Economics-Unlike the universal wisdom and wisdom of America’s founders such as Ben Franklin, spending beyond one’s means has gradually become a second nature both for individual and the government. The innocent public with ‘good credit, bad credit, and no credit’ is lured to get not only one, but multiple credit cards and purchase what they WANT rather than only what they NEED because they have lost their traditional wisdom to tell the difference between the two. We have just observed how some other profiteers lure the innocent and gullible public to purchase homes and take advantage of them when they fail to make their payments. Deficit spending by individual is similar to that by the government except for volume. Government is not concerned with record deficit that amounts to per capita of $30,000 and growing. Nor the government cares if the money from the social security is spent to fight futile wars with enemy of its own creation through a policy of fear and war mongering that is nothing short of exploitation of the people in the name of defending them.
Global standing-Lack of knowledge of history of not only America, but other cultures of the world mentioned above has produced arrogant leaders who insist that other countries should adopt the American democracy. There was a time that this was true and the world was inspired by the American Revolution, but imagine what would happen if all other countries emulated America at this time. Venturing into countries in the name of shoving freedom and democracy down the people’s throat and trampling on their historic sites in the name of defending America is truly a reversion to colonial mentality that should have no place in America. Bullying and demonizing other people, cultures and religions unless they agree with us-either they are with us or against us! Committing such atrocities and underestimation other people’s intelligence has made America the laughing stock of the world, much less winning their hearts and minds. Our arrogant leaders have become blind to the fact that all nations, once energized by the American Revolution have reached the point where they want to deter colonialism of any kind, be it the old colonialism or what could be called neocolonialism-American style born-again hate our freedom and democracy! We have conditioned our otherwise innocent public to believe that other people hate our freedom and democracy and they are conspiring to destroy us, while the truth is that America is still loved by almost all people and what they despise is American colonial foreign policy and not its people. We have to wake up to the reality that other people are opposing our expansionism and our free access to their resources much like our forefathers fought colonialism and similarly branded as terrorists. Demonizing other countries just because for no legitimate reason in the name of spread of freedom and democracy is immoral, unethical and un-American, to say the least.
Remedy-The only long term solution to this huge problem is to utilize our wherewithal to educate and inform the people at a cost that is a pittance as compared to what we spend in stockpiling weapons of mass destruction that can already annihilate the world several times. Or, what we spend on the War on Terror. We should end our divisive policies both inside and outside our borders and bring up the good rather than evil side of the people out, as that is the cheapest means of winning the hearts and minds of the people. Doing all of these we will discover that America is loved by the world, much as it is now. We have to admit that all of our enemies are mistreated friends by our persistence to revive the colonial policies defeated by America’s founders. Ironically the world understands loves America far better than America understands the world. To demonstrate the global love for America, I am willing to take any number of Americans anywhere in the world, including those we name ‘rogue’ nations and bring them back safe and sound, perhaps safer than they would be in most streets of America. It is vital that we stop blaming foreign countries or corporate America for America’s demise, for corporations are smart enough to adjust their products and services to and degree of sophistication of their clients-the informed public. This is demonstrated by philanthropic activities of Giant Microsoft’s Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation to millions of individual and businesses that use their time and resources to help America to counteract the assault of hypocrisy on our freedom and democracy. I look forward to see America wake up from its long hibernation induced by its internal enemies and surface as a Sleeping Giant. It is unbecoming of America to strip America of its free expression, right to privacy through surveillance, outsourcing their jobs, and most ridiculous of all outsourcing torture to repressive regimes if they oppose the aforementioned atrocities. Unlike many of my fellow Americans I believe that the economic mess created by the extremists is a blessing, a wake-up call that would never happen with the status quo. One awaken, the American ingenuity and the guardianship of its informed public will solve not only the energy problems, but any problem under the sun. After all America has been known to do so many seemingly impossible tasks during its short history.
I end with two quotations from three great Americans who were concerned about the destruction we would face if we failed to distinguish a civilization that is preoccupied with gadgetry and on that cares more about meaningful, moderate and meaningful lifestyle.
"I know not with what weapons World War III will be fought, but World War IV will be fought with sticks and stones."
-Albert Einstein
"The end of human race is that it will die of civilization."
-Ralph Waldo Emerson
"Educating a man in mind and not morals is educating a menace to our society."
-Teddy Roosevelt
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