SWEETWATER, Florida, U.S.A—Let them tell you they have industrialized because they have the vaunted free market capitalism. Let them tell you they have a free country!
Let them tell you they are advanced nations because they have better science and better schools. Let them tell you they have thousands of better experts!
Let them tell you that they are developed nations because of democratic institutions, and that your leaders are just naturally corrupt.
Let them tell you that the only reason why most of their 23 year old ladies can graduate from college tomorrow, walk into jobs, buy new cars and new houses, is because their country is run on a sophisticated Banking system.
Just let them tell you that in order to become like them, you must follow in their footsteps. Steps drawn up in fine detail for your genuflecting appreciation.
Let them tell you about anything but the sheer violence of their wanton primitive accumulation of material wealth. You believe everything!
The American Dream goes like this:
Just about twenty individuals have as much wealth as the poorest half of the country (150 million people). Just eight men in the West have as much wealth as half the world (3.6 billion people). The top 1 percent of the U.S. population took home 91 percent of all U.S. income in a recent four year period.
Nearly 50 percent of children in the U.S. live below or near the poverty line. The Guardian recently reported that the ecosystem the world over is collapsing with a rapidly increasing number of species going extinct. Furthermore, 78 percent of people in America are living paycheck to paycheck (a figure that’s increasing each year). Hate groups—KKK, Fascists & Zionists—and racial incidents are on the rise.
The American Dream, or is it the American Nightmare?
But let them tell you that they are the eidolon of modern civilization. Let them tell you that the epitome of great civilizations is a weapon of mass destruction—thousands, capable of destroying the whole planet hundreds of times over—not superior art!
Let them tell you about anything but the barbarism of Western Civilization—the sheer violence of their primitive accumulation of material wealth. You believe everything! So let them tell you about anything but their insanity.
Very succinct yet so powerful pharaoh brother Narmer. Of course we let them tell the story because we do not write enough to tell our own stories and cannot remember what we say. Until we read our own versions, we cannot know another side but only absorb these tales of primitive accumulation. Great read indeed!