Exploiting The Last Frontier

I remember a U.S.A. that used to want to save its precious mineral wealth. And so it did, by harvesting the mineral resources of other nations. It was cynical and ugly, but it made sense. Take from those who could not protect themselves, because those people at home were growing wise to the game.

So we left our oil in the ground and called it “reserves”. If anything unanticipated happened, we would have something to fall back on. In place of our own oil, we used what was in Saudi Arabia, Iraq, Iran, Venezuela, and elsewhere. We took their oil and in exchange gave them brutal dictators who went along with our scheme just so long as they got a slice of the oil revenue. The people in those nations, the vast majority of them, were poor and oppressed, but it was “over there”, so we didn’t think much about it. And when we did express some moral qualms, those who were profiting off the situation had a pat response to our questioning. They told us the reason people were poor in those countries and we weren’t was because the U.S. was the greatest country in the world and that’s why we weren’t suffering. Don’t want to suffer like those in country A? Then support freedom. Support the government and the military that defends our freedom to be fat and happy and richer than those poor people over there who are stupid and don’t love freedom the way we do.

So we did. We paid dearly in taxes to have the world’s largest military in order to suppress those people who thought stupid thoughts and tried to support governments that weren’t approved by Washington, which of course was only interested in freedom, which is best expressed through the free market. Because when they resisted our desire to take their natural resources instead of relying on our own, they were trampling on the American way. They were spitting on OUR FLAG, the very symbol of freedom that was the only way to bring happiness and prosperity to their pathetic country. Why, if they only lived according to our dictates, given all the natural resources they possessed, they too would be rich. But those stupid foreigners just didn’t get it. They insisted on opposing us, and the only thing we could do was to bomb them into submission. Maybe that would teach them to love freedom.

But in the last decade or so, something has changed. No, we haven’t stopped bombing those foolish resource rich nations, we’ve been doing plenty of that. What has changed was a sudden realization on the part of our leaders that we suddenly have to become independent of the resources of other nations because they have become too powerful and are a threat to us. So we have begun to tap into those resources we have here, hidden beneath our forests and lakes and oceans. From the Redwood Forest, to the Gulf Stream Waters, from the purple mountains majesty to the fruited plains, they were all opened up to the mighty corporations that made our nation so great.

And this exploitation of our natural resources and the irreparable damage that goes along with it is sold to us as rejuvenating our country, of making America great again. But what it is doing is taking us back to the time when our rivers were so polluted they caught fire, the days before we stood up against the powerful monied interests and said “no more”. It is taking us back to a time our ancestors found intolerable, a time when people joined together to demand limits to the very rich who used our nation’s resources as their personal playthings. In short, those wealth extractors are now doing to the United States what they have so long done to other countries.

The oligarchs have come home to roost. No longer content to strip every other nation bare of their resources, they now are doing at home what was once unthinkable.

Perhaps, just perhaps, those who profited from the misery of those in foreign nations were never really concerned with American interests at all. Perhaps it was the profit they were interested in all along, and they merely used patriotism as an excuse, used American exceptionalism as an excuse, used the stupidity and evil of foreigners as an excuse to abuse and exploit them. And perhaps they have grown so rich and powerful from their exploitation of others lands that they now feel confident and arrogant enough to set aside the mask they once wore in our presence. Perhaps they now just don’t care to pretend they’re one of us. Perhaps now they are willing to exploit their own nation for all it is worth.

You see, those cynical bastards never really cared about America at all, they just wanted to get as rich as they possibly could. America means nothing to them, and they will tear it down for quick profit, just as they have done everywhere else on the planet. After all, how can you care for a country when you are actively destroying the planet on which that country is located? Greed has no loyalty, no morality, no patriotism. The only thing greed has is a good public relations team.