Patriot Act Rocks
Strength in diversity and multiculturalism.
Hasan Minhaj’s Patriot Act and John Oliver’s Last Week Tonight are two of the best sources for in-depth looks at America as we know it.
That’s right. Two immigrants.
Teaching Americans things we should be able to learn for ourselves or we should have been taught in school or while being home-schooled or we should have realized was bullshit from the get-go. Like psychics and multi-level marketing, aka pyramid schemes.
I love that Hasan Minhaj has hijacked the two words “patriot act” and made them his own. Search “patriot act” and you will more than likely dredge up a bunch of sites linked to his Netflix show. I first became aware of his special talents when he emceed the White House Correspondent’s Dinner.
John Oliver’s show is on HBO in its original form but you can stream it later on YouTube. Oliver’s biting wit and ability to explain arcane details while being funny is uncanny. His lawyers must be very good because he is more than happy to bait coal mine bigwigs and antagonize those in need of a good reality check.
I binge-watched a few episodes of Patriot Act the other night. Something Hasan said during one of his shows struck me.
I shouldn’t need reminders about economic disparities but his statement floored me.
Harvard University’s endowment of $40 billion is greater than more than a third of the countries in the world’s GDPs (gross domestic products). Gross Domestic Product is one way - the accepted way - in which we measure a nation’s wealth. (The country of Bhutan prefers the measurement of Gross National Happiness. When all countries finally grow up, they should strive to be more like Bhutan.) I looked it up and, as of 2019, Bolivia had a little more than $40 billion and the other 60 to 70 nations below it fell short.
Mind you. We are only talking about Harvard’s endowment. One Ivy League university among about a dozen on the eastern seaboard. One university among many in the United States.
Remember these words? You might remember them from grade school.
“Give me your tired, your poor, your huddled masses yearning to breathe free.” This quote comes from Emma Lazarus’ sonnet, New Colossus, which she wrote for a fundraiser auction to raise money for the pedestal upon which the Statue of Liberty now sits.
How long have you heard America referred to as “the land of opportunity”?
I read today that the city of New York - the original melting pot of America - has more than 100 billionaires. Just New York City. Which means, of course, there is more wealth, just in New York City than there is in those lesser than Bolivia countries.
By the way, every country in Latin America - you know, the ones just south of our border excluding Mexico - falls below Bolivia’s GDP. Even the enlightened and peaceful, not war-ravaged, Costa Rica.
Is it any wonder people the world over seek to get into the United States?
The disparity of wealth within the United States is egregious. But the disparity of wealth outside of the United States is equally egregious.
As an environmentalist by nature, not training, I grind my teeth at night thinking about the growing discrepancy and how the pursuit of wealth no matter the cost to cultures, ecologies and wildlife will continue to be a net loss until we choose to dial it back.
What should we do? What can we do?
I’d start by concluding our endless wars, the indiscriminate funding of our war on terror. That money is sorely needed elsewhere - infrastructure, education, foreign aid, universal health care. All of our “engagements” in the Middle East drain our Treasury (of course, they fatten people like Dick Cheney’s bank accounts), contribute to the displacement of hundreds of thousands, maybe millions of people, poison the landscapes, exacerbate the effects of climate change and sour enough people’s view of America to create generations of potential terrorists.
I’m not advocating isolationism. I’m advocating that we quit being a terrorist nation in order to kill terrorists. Our military was not designed nor meant for nation-building.
Just stop and ponder…How would you like fresh-faced, newly-minted, twenty-something Chinese patrolling your neighborhood, interjecting in your City Council meetings and blowing up the occasional wedding party?
I don’t know for a fact, but it does not feel like we are balancing our international actions. It feels like we are shooting first, asking questions later and it feels like this has been the modus operandi since the World Trade Towers vanished in a mushroom cloud of dust and construction debris.
Add to that, a renegade administration, an administration filled with grifters, bent on ostracizing our country from the sane leaders in the world and then completely bungling its response to a pandemic either intentionally or because they are pathetically incompetent and you have the makings of a pariah nation. And, even so, immigrants from every corner of the globe clamor to reach our shores.
I’d prefer we follow the Gross National Happiness doctrine of Bhutan, but, if not, I want to level the economic playing field.
We start by draining the swamp of its current inhabitants. And that includes corporatists of every party.
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This is interesting. Note China’s start in 1800 and finish in 2040. And - if you’re wondering - the flags that end at the top under GDP Per Capita Ranking on the side are: Qatar, Luxembourg and Singapore.
Also, please please please listen to this woman’s 2 minute rant about our failed current “leadership”. She’s good at getting her message across. The acronym on her hat stands for Return America To Leadership (RATL). If you are on Twitter, give her a follow or like or retweet or all of them.
You’re either “RidenWithBiden” or “DyingWithDonald”.
