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 Editorials | Opinions | October 2007 
Stop the Killing and Polluting
 Jose Perez - MexicoMatters.net
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| | My Mexican/American friends, who have dual citizenship, used to travel abroad proudly on U.S. passports. Now they use their Mexican passports because Mexicans are better received. Mexicans are not trying to save the world for democracy and don’t interfere in the sovereignty of other nations. |
War, genocide, terrorism, global warming, world hunger and thirst, overcrowded prisons, pandemic drug addiction and aids – the bleakest of times in the life of this senior citizen.
I was raised in the innocence of the fifties and a young activist in the ideological sixties. Like most of my generation, we long for the “the good old days”. Bewildered by why we have advanced so much technologically while seemingly to regress in the practice of humanity and brotherly love.
Why have we not evolved to a better place in solving our international differences? Why domestically, do we have more divorce, violence, suicide, drug addiction and delinquent behavior? Why do we remain xenophobic and racist? Why are children killing other children at school?
There are answers and solutions to the above. And with agreement and commitment, the old eternal hippy optimist in me, believes we can affect solutions to better our world. On the international front the major culprits to peace are: religion, oil and U.S. foreign policy.
Let us examine the big R first – RELIGION. Christians, Jews, Moslems, and Hindus have been fighting over “the holy land” for thousand of years and there is no end in sight. Whatever your religious belief, we must begin to insist that our spiritual leaders invoke other religious leaders in coming together for a new ecumenical council.
To celebrate and agree that our common doctrine and belief in a higher power requires us to stop killing and harming each other. Put your spirituality to the test and tell your priest, rabbi, pastor, monk or whatever - to stop preaching and start praying, chanting and practicing, along with other faiths, to end this stupidity of religious combat that kills and destroys entire civilizations.
There should be no higher spiritual priority than this. Tell your “godly guy” to stop proselytizing and get humble. If they cannot accomplish this, they should give up their tunic, habit or robe and join the godless atheists because they don’t deserve god – they are just shuckin and jivin charlatans who want believers as opposed to what they proclaim but not practice: universal godly peace.
As for culprit number two – OIL - we can all vote for Mike Gravel for president and end our nation’s addiction to oil. A retired senator from Alaska, he distinguished himself in the senate as a champion of the environment. At age 77 he says he never wanted to return to political life but cannot stand by and watch the idiocy of our leading presidential candidates waffling on Iraq and not declaring an end to the burning up of our planet with fossil fuels.
Senator Gravel is emphatic that he would take our troops out of Iraq in 120 days and switch to a variety of renewable energy sources to fuel our nation. The technology is there, says the senator, to convert our nation from petroleum in five years. It is only commitment and leadership that is lacking. I know he is right. He is the only one talking sense about the urgency in solving the earth’s most serious problem: the burning of fossil fuels and the killing of innocent people over the need for same.
Culprit Number Three – U.S. FOREIGN POLICY. Have you ever read our foreign policy? I would like to see it written so that we can all understand it, debate it and get behind it. Hell no, it is not written. If it were, and reflected reality, it would read: “Do what is best for America and the hell with everybody else.”
These are not my words or attitudes; it is the voice of world opinion. And we have not been listening. How is it that we have dropped from being the world’s heroes, after world war two, to now being described by Senator John Edwards, international leaders and journalists as “the planet’s bully.”
My Mexican/American friends, who have dual citizenship, used to travel abroad proudly on U.S. passports. Now they use their Mexican passports because Mexicans are better received. Mexicans are not trying to save the world for democracy and don’t interfere in the sovereignty of other nations.
Our foreign policy is not written because that would hold our leaders accountable to a real policy and code on how we are to govern ourselves in the world. It is not written because our geopolitical paradigm is based on convenience. It has nothing to do with morals, democracy or strategic planning. We have supported too many dictators in the past, including Sadam Hussein, to hypocritically hide behind the “championing democracy” banner.
No need to go to the other side of the world for examples. Mexico, at our border, suffered a 90 year autocracy that ruled by oppression; killing and jailing political opposition. All those years, the mafia-like PRI party was supported by the U.S. and we knew what was going on. The lone voice in our congress was Senator Jesse Helms, who continually pointed out the hypocrisy and immorality of supporting the despotic Mexican government.
Any intelligent and educated being, inside or outside of America, knows that the “fight for democracy” philosophy is not supported by historical fact. International opinion believes our foreign policy has everything to do with maintaining a pampered American lifestyle. A lifestyle where everything is disposable including the planet and all it’s flora and fauna.
General Motors Chairman Charlie Wilson, when lobbying congress for federal assistance with auto worker’s medical care, told the U.S. Senate in 1955, “What is good for General Motors is good for America.” That is, in affect, what we are telling the world - “what is good for the U.S. is good for you.” And the world, like the 1955 congress, ain’t buying it. George Bush combines the international culprit of religion with a corrupt foreign policy and arrogantly tells us that God is his navigator in matters of foreign affairs. This god on our side” philosophy takes “the white man’s burden” to ridiculous extremes, justifying the assassination of world leaders who disagree with us and imposing our brand of democracy on those who may or may not want democracy in any form.
If we, the American people, insist that we stop warring and polluting, those multiple billions of dollars could go toward taking drug addicts out of prison (we have more imprisoned citizens than any other Western nation) and into effective rehabilitation. Cure the plight of our deteriorating school system that causes our literacy rate to be one of the lowest in the developed world. And, in some cases, lower than undeveloped countries. Provide tort reform to fix corrupt personal injury abuses that are causing our best doctors to quit practicing medicine. Understandable, considering outrageous malpractice premiums and the economic need to let HMO bureaucracy determine what’s best for the patient instead of the physician. Better oversight of drug companies who charge double for the medication sold to United States consumers when compared to the same drug sold in Mexico.
The family and our children are suffering because we have lost our way. Materialism has replaced maternal and paternalism. But, with the money and energy rescued from international intervention and pollution, we can turn our resources inward. Helping families with quality medical care, better education, housing, child care and social services that have the resources to effectively address and treat family depression and dysfunction.
In short America. Let’s get busy and get our priorities straight.
Jose Perez is a member of the MexicoMatters team of Bilingual and Bicultural professionals who have been serving the foreign investor in Mexico since 1984. MexicoMatters is recommended by the U.S. consulate in Tijuana as leaders in foreign investor assistance. For more information, visit MexicoMatters.net. |
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