Why is your life in the West so good?
Keywords:
Informed
Conversation
Mar 10, 2019
Do you in the West still consider yourself self made? Are you successful and enjoying the good life because you worked hard and made the right decisions. Think again.
Why is your life in the West so good?
The West
controls the flow of oil. This control is historical, and enforced using the largest military alliance in the world. When any country buys oil from the Middle East, the Western nations get part of the revenue. Most of the money is also invested back in the West by the Governments of the Middle East. Oil is also almost exclusively traded in US$. This forces all countries to desperately fight to earn Dollars at all costs by exporting whatever they have at discounted prices to the West. The West always gets a good deal.
The West gets a steady flow of Immigrants. It is well documented that half of the innovative Tech companies in the Silicon Valley are founded by Immigrants. Where would the West's hegemony be without the products coming out of Silicon Valley? This hegemony, in turn, brings in more educated immigrants. The West gets the
world's most brilliant minds working at mid-tier positions serving and reporting to their barely educated incompetent privileged corporate masters, and it gets it without having spent a dollar to raise them, train or educate them.
Listen to an immigrant and they will share stories and anecdotes of their professional experiences at mid-tier position, building world-class products while working around the incompetence, nepotism and privilege of their Executives. A hushed up aspect of the massive admissions scandal in the USA is that it proved thousands of senior executives hired from top-tier universities didn't deserve to be at the university in the first place, and certainly didn't deserve their executive positions.
"The system gives a veneer of meritocracy to a society that reproduces privilege from generation to generation".
In other words, your immigrant, subordinate, under-paid, junior employee, whom you look down upon in subtle ways is the one who makes you look good, and
they know it all too well.
These brilliant world-class immigrants are not here for the money, or for life in a democratic system based on the rule of law, or a better life. Most of them are political and environmental refugees fleeing political persecution and environmental destruction brought about by the exploitation and extraction of resources by Western Nations. For their service, the immigrants face professional discrimination, racism, and xenophobia. They don't want to be here, they rather 'go home' and run their countries, but can't.
Most of the agriculture and food processing in the Western nations uses
low paid immigrant labor without any rights. How much food would need to be imported and at what cost if there would were no immigrants willing to do farm work at well below the minimum wages? How much higher would food prices be if farmers needed to invest in mechanization or pay higher wages? This practice of using immigrant farm labor benefits you most in the West. The immigrants are political and environmental refugees fleeing for their lives. It is a sign of how arrogant and inhumane we are that we think they are 'benefiting' when we save their lives.
"The recent increase in UACs and families migrating from the Northern Triangle is attributable to immediate threats of violence, corruption and environmental degradation in these countries" - Immigration Forum, 2019.
I leave it to you to make the connection between consumption of crack, coke, ecstasy, speed or whatever psychedelic drugs are used in the privileged suburbs in the West, and the 'violence, corruption and environmental degradation' which 'pushes' immigrants out from their homeland where all these drugs are grown. They don't want to be here, they rather 'go home' to their family and lifestyle.
The West, particularly the European nations still
benefit from their Colonial past. It is well documented and researched that
Britain stole US$45 Trillion(in todays money) from India during the British Rule. Even if a fraction of that money was invested wisely, those proceeds of crime will still be enough to sustain the British economy today. Not only was that money used to build up British industry, the British Empire consciously decimated India's industry and the industry of other nations, making the West look like the only 'industrious' nation.
The West has
abundant land and resources in USA, Canada, and Australia. These stolen lands from the indigenous people sustain its lifestyle. Your ancestral prime lakeside or seaside cottage where you had beautiful childhood memories was most likely
built on stolen land.
The West is a
safe haven for illicit fortunes of oligarchs, robber barons, and corrupt politicians and businesses of the world. They bring money stolen from the poorest of the poor. The largest investment banks help the world's criminals to launder their money and bring it to the West. The real estate in Canada is built on this money. The Investment Banks lobby the Politicians and the Government to ensure there are sufficient loopholes to not disrupt the large scale flow of illicit money. The strict money laundering laws are only for the poor. No wonder
Canada is called the 'Maytag of money laundering' for its large scale 'snow-washing' of dirty money stolen from the poorest of the world's poor.
Exploitation of people, and extraction of resources is institutionalized so deeply that you are not even aware of it. It is willful ignorance, and an inconvenient fact. The Western trend of sending thoughts and prayers, meditating, acting spiritual, and writing a book about it doesn't change anything, and doesn't fool anyone.
China, India, and other countries are matching the West's consumption of resources because a large part of their economy exists to serve the West.
The West
actively suppresses any foreign Government which refuses to suppress, extort, and exploit its people, and extract its resources. The instruments of World Bank, IMF, Corporate Media, and 'Manufactured Consent' from the public are used for that.
The untold story of the Rest of the World is how many great ideas have been suppressed in these countries, and how many dreams trampled. How many wilderness and indigenous cultures destroyed. All this so you in the West can have a good life.
The rest of the world will be richer without having to sustain the West. The West will be poorer without the rest of the world to exploit and extort.
It takes
resources such as oil and rare metals accumulated over millions of years all over the world to give you the good life.
Do you in the West still consider yourself self-made? Are you successful and enjoying the good life because you worked hard and made the right decisions? Think again.
Your life in the West is so good because your Institutions, Government, and Corporations force the whole world at gunpoint to serve you and bankroll you, while you conveniently and willfully look the other way. People all over the world are exploited, resources extracted, and the planet trashed to give you the good life you enjoy.
How ironic it is when you preach the world your neoliberal or neocolonial gospel of entrepreneurship, industriousness, and empathy.
"
Again we have deluded ourselves into believing the myth that Capitalism grew and prospered out of the Protestant ethic of hard work and sacrifice. The fact is that capitalism was built on the exploitation and suffering of black slaves and continues to thrive on the exploitation of the poor – both black and white, both here and abroad" - Martin Luther King Jr.
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