by Nico Raj Rahm
www.nicorahm.com
While the whole world deals with the massive decline of the financial system I can't help but blame the US. Call me unpatriotic if you must, but given the fact that the greedy investments into risky mortgages by everyone on earth was initiated by, who else, Wall Street, I'm not off base to suggest that the U.S. has really put itself in a bad position.
The U.S. was already fighting a long winded and expensive war in Iraq before this financial crisis started. Its international reputation and respect were already faltering. So if tremendous debt, and sinking worldly relations were not enough, the polarized state of the American populace has me really worried.
I don't think there ever was a time in recent decades that this country has been so devided on everyday issues, and usually based on nothing else but personal religious beliefs, whether they were conservative fundamentalist christians or liberal atheists. An American has to only cross some state lines to feel that he or she has just visited a completely different country. Political trenches are being drawn like no other time before, state by state, and county by county, all the way to cities and districts. It has become difficult to disagree with someone on political issues without declaring social war!
All this scares me, especially when considering the fate of the former USSR only a couple of decades ago. At that time, the USSR was stuck fighting a long and expensive war in Afghanistan. Its member states were polarized politically. Financial constraints were expansive. Doesn't that sound so much like today's USA?
It's easy to imagine how the U.S. could very well be on its way to a simlar fate as the former USSR. Imagine Florida, New York and California as separate nations, or Alaska as part of Canada!
While I don't think it is likely that the USA will break apart any time soon, but with the current problems, and the imminent rise of China and India as global powers, this is not the time for Americans to fight among themselves if they want their country stay in one piece.
Or is it too late?
www.nicorahm.com
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Your characterization of the American people as "polarized" is absurd.
ReplyDeleteI have mixed with a lot of different crowds, and I think you are over-stating the importance of religious demagogues and fascists in this country.
What does separate people in this country is our interests as citizens in geographic or cultural areas vs. our collective interests as citizens of a large country.
If our federal government continues to publicly and openly screw us over, and other powers will profit from inner chaos here in the U.S., then yes we will face secession movements and revolts.
It has little to do, intrinsically, with religious nuts. Those guys are facades for larger interests to aligned behind.
I disagree with your notion that this global financial mess is the fault of the USA. First to make sweeping generalizations about a group of people is wrong, If you want blame the US Government, go ahead and blame them, if you want to blame greedy wall street brokers, go ahead and blame them, but don't generalize and say all are guilty, when there are those who most certainly are not guilty.
ReplyDeleteYour statement: "I can't help but blame the US" does sound unpatriotic, if you adjust your target to hone in on a target, for example: "I can't help but blame those greedy wall street bankers..." this no longer sounds in the least bit unpatriotic. Also I would question whether or not the shareholders on the boards of these large multinational banks are all American.
I do agree with you though on the polarization of the American people, which I believe to be the direct result of the way the two major parties have run behaved themselves over the past decade or so. Elections have become small civil wars where if you are not "with us", you are "against us." There seems to be no more middle ground, no more compromise, any more.
As a people the US needs two things more than ever the "Truth", and a strong leader. The truth I'm talking about is not the fairy tale notion that the "Big Guy" upstairs will make everything better, but a the real truth behind the flaws in the current American economy and its lack of sustainability. For an in depth look at what is wrong with the economy Google 'David Walker GAO' and read some of what this man has said about the economy and watch some of his interviews, according to him we are far worse off then what the media and politicians are telling us. I hope that for our sake and our children's sake that we can pull together and make it through.
I think India should now compare with China because China is growing faster than India. Most of the outsourcing business is now taken by China, Malaysia and other countries because of rupee-dollar problem and increasing standard of living. US will perish in next decades.
ReplyDeleteNow Obama should do some thing like Martin Luther King did...
ReplyDelete