The United World: No Wonder They Have a Love-Hate Relationship with the United States of America
Every night before I slip into the great unknown where my subconscious rules the world, I read at least five pages of Thomas Jefferson’s personal writings, sometimes even the same pages as the previous night, imaging he ’s actually standing next to my bed and whispering these words into my ear, and sharing his unique experiences about the concept and practice of democracy and freedom.
He laments over his continual struggle with other members of the nascent Congress, those frightened souls who conspired to undermine the authority of the newly created United States of America and side with King George and the great Bank of England, which sought to tax the American colonies to death. Paradoxically, yes, to death: if the Bank of England could reduce us to rubble, they then could install a Great Britain, West Bank, populated by dukes, barons and lords of, say, The Great Mexican State of California.
But I’m getting ahead of myself.
How is it that everyone outside the United States is well familiar–to the point of being nauseated–with the imperialism of the United States, while practically no one inside the US has a clue?
It doesn’t take much to control a great country: a few choice leaders at the top, controlling about one hundred loyal dogs, tongues lolling about, who in turn control thousands more in an army or armada of the military, who in turn control the rest of the population.
Sound easy? It is. Hitler did it well for 12 years, from 1933 to 1945, until he and Eva Braun were ferreted out of the country by British intelligence agents.
When the US has taken over another country’s government and installed its own dictatorship, that country’s economy has gone into the toilet, and US transnational corporations have earned billions of dollars a year from blood and dissonance and destruction.
In Latin America, where I did most of my 211 missions as a corporate silladar (read: good mercenary) over a very grueling and extremely dangerous nine-year period, I talked with intellectuals who knew more about American history than I did, which prompted me to read more than I already did–about 10 books a month. I first learned about the US’s awful habit of sending in “economic hitmen” who tried to bribe and threaten reasonably stable governments to take out high-interest loans and agree to impossibly large building projects, all performed by US transnational corporations like Bechtel, e.g. When the economic approach didn’t work, the US sent in the assholes, men who murdered all the right people in that country’s government.
Don’t chastise me for reporting what’s been known and reported in many parts of the world for decades. Don’t bother. I hear it all the time, even from friends who patriotically wave that beautiful American flag to and fro, all the while ignorant of what it actually stands for and who owns it.
When the US has taken over another country’s government and installed its own dictatorship, that country’s economy has gone into the toilet, and US transnational corporations have earned billions of dollars a year from blood and dissonance and destruction. Every single time. There are no exceptions here. None. The US government’s henchmen, the CIA, the State Department and US AID, have destroyed any semblance of democracy in Latin America, and for what?
US transnational companies’ profits. Pure and simple. For the greed of a few Americans.
When I tell this story to people in the US, they treat me like I have incurable leprosy. Yes, it’s hard to swallow, difficult to comprehend. So what’s it going to take for the average US citizen to wake up and realize that all the hatred toward us Americans is for GOOD REASON: our own government has destroyed many countries in this big beautiful world of ours, and has further alienated and marginalized their wonderful people.
They hate us because they think we’re a party to our government’s ill deeds.
They also love us because we live the American Dream. For now.
This is an interesting paradox, this love-hate relationship with us. I call it a relationship, because that’s what they want with us, although they want nothing to do with our government as it is today. Neither do I, so I understand as well as they do.
I didn’t grow up in the United States. My formative years, all 12 of them, were spent in Europe where my first languages were Spanish and German, then English and later Italian. My first memory in life was when I was two years old and walking with my Opa, who at that time was 65 years old and who had survived WW II. On one particular outing, we rounded a corner and ran into a friend of his, a very tall gentleman who looked down on me and said, “Guten tag, Jungen!” He did so with a huge gaping hole in his head: his right eye was missing, displaying only a soft, fleshy cavity that captivated me to no end. I wanted to reach out and put my little finger in this cavity and feel its softness, figure out what made this monster tick.
They yearn to come to America. They fight and kill to come here. They cross borders illegally to come to the US. They pay thousands of dollars and yen and yuan and pesos to board vans and buses and freight cars and junks and ferries to come here.
During my determinative days in Europe, I listened to hundreds of conversations about the US and its foreign policy. It was then that I learned never to read an American newspaper, unless I wished to learn something mundane like whether the Orioles beat the Dodgers. Since I hated all organized sports, I was in no danger of reading such drivel. I also learned that the BBC was a government-run network, that France controlled all its media, and that Italy wasn’t worth reading, even for amusement. The only news worth gathering was from people on the street, people I met and knew and grew up with over 12 years.
The United States has done one thing right: been consistent in its policy. That’s about it, consistency. It has destroyed fledgling democracies in Latin America, shored up the militant state of Israel to kill its Arab neighbors, and ransacked other countries for their wealth and natural resources.
One of my old professors used to say, “If you can’t be good, at least be consistent.”
And the United States’ foreign policy has indeed been consistent.
Now I know what he meant.
And I also understand why they all hate us so much: because we kill their spirit, their leaders, and steal their resources. And then when we’re done with them, we cast them aside like so much chattel.
The flip side: I understand why they love and envy us so, too, because we live in a world that promises and preaches and advertises PEACE, FREEDOM and DEMOCRACY.
They yearn to come to America. They fight and kill to come here. They cross borders illegally to come to the US. They pay thousands of dollars and yen and yuan and pesos to board vans and buses and freight cars and junks and ferries to come here.
Why?
Because we promise Jeffersonian PEACE, FREEDOM and DEMOCRACY, something every human wishes for.
Yet, until we actually practice it, those who have that love-hate relationship with us will still HATE us for promising it to everyone and delivering it to no one.
If Thomas Jefferson were alive to see this debacle today, he would doubtless say, “I told you so, you idiots,” referring to a statement he made about how big banks and their interests would take over the western world and destroy it.
Where are this generation’s Dr. Noam Chomskys when we need them the most?
Playing video games, plumping up on McDonald’s, and stoning to shoe-gazer, thumb-up-your-ass, downer chords on iTunes.
