The Gringo Paradigm

The rest of the world shakes their head in wonder — what is really happening in that country that touts itself as “The Greatest on Earth?”

How do the citizens inside its borders never wonder what exists beyond, a wopping 70% of them existing without even a passport? How do they continue to believe a government-sponsored news cycle, why don’t they seek outside opinions or doubt the official narrative like the rest of the world? Why do they continue to allow arms sales across borders, to 14 year olds within the country, without background checks? Why do they consistently give away their power and argue against improvements, as if they like to suffer, as if no one knows better than their own governments, a government that continues to poison citizens and foreigners alike in the name of profits?

And more uncomfortably, how does the average American continue to separate themselves from the war-mongering, democracy-crippling regime of its’ government, dependent on their tax dollars, without ever raising their voice or their fist or their efforts in dissent?

The paradigm of the Land of the Free goes deeper than any one article on a website can explain, though fear ripples through the rest of the world to even go up against ego on such a scale. If members of a society are the most successful in changing it, why don’t more Americans stand up against the dominant paradigm, voice their dissent, shout from the rooftops the evils of their government? A systematic disempowering of one citizens’ voice, for one. An education system that pins ‘saviors against savages’ and denies any culpability for the vaccuum created by its geopolitical greed and short-sightedness.

Herein lies the Gringo Paradigm: a country that baselessly claims its the best, so loudly and so consistently, continues indoctrinating its people from a young age. Afterall, democracy depends on an enlightened majority, and where the states are concerned, citizens are taught to believe, accept, and perpetuate the lie of their supremacy without ever having even an opportunity to learn about other successful societies, where mass shootings are non-existent, where healthcare is a human right, where public transportation is reliable and entire communities have successfully become carbon neutral, and support rather than berate one another, for instance.

Alas, the mechanism of Gringo government, where imperialism and extraction are touted as their divine rights, and where manifest destiny excuses all evils, continues unabated, unchallenged, indoctrinated so heavily through education, media, voter suppression and more.

The world watches in horror as the United States government unanimously decides to bomb another Democratically elected regime, somehow in the name of Democracy, but transparently obvious to be in the name of profit (see Syria, Afghanistan, Venezuela, Chile, Hong Kong, Vietnam, the list goes on), even in a global pandemic the boots of American Imperialism stomp down on anyone who disagrees.

We hope that Americans themselves are as lost as the rest of the world as to their government’s evil, but oftentimes, they accept the lie that if American bases weren’t scattered around the world, somehow our safety would be compromised. In fact, the opposite is true, and terrorism against Americans, on American soil, is a direct response to the ‘Green-Go’ orders that murder, rape, and pillage despite the growing number of civilian casualties.

Global and local citizens alike scratch their heads and ask one another: What’s going on in American schools, in their pharmacies, with their food system, in their 2-party political system that citizens believe to be so different? The rest of the world watches with bated breath as elections come and go, and what changes in name never seems to limit the reach of Gringo Imperialism, from which no other country or innocent civilian is safe when the Yankees decide you have something they want.

Around the world, global citizens know more about United States history and current events than the average American, an anomaly of their education that citizens aren’t taught to think critically or even know where the countries their government invades lies on a map. Much of the world acknowledges the ‘Two-Party System’ as an obvious farce, where both Democrat and Republican parties are really the Capitalist parties, stopping at nothing to continue garnering wealth from vulnerable places that lack the military power to deny entry.

What is happening, is a deep reckoning for centuries of spiritually devoid, culturally devoid existence: the United States of America, ‘Land of the Free,’ for white, wealthy citizens, but rarely for Natives or Immigrants or those whose representation in government is willfully ignored. ‘Land of the Free,’ where Puerto Rico and Guam are colonies but not beneficiaries, where Hawaii was stolen in the 60s and overrun with plantations until this day.

What then, is the great paradigm? The list is endless, but the most wanton example of the Gringo paradigm, is that a country screaming about freedom routinely demonstrates its lack of freedom. A country shouting to be the loudest about its supremacy consistently falls short in metrics of health, education, and happiness. With less than one percent of the world’s population, it holds 25% of the imprisoned population. It’s first commandment, for freedom of speech, is consistently ignored when works are deemed Pro-China or Russia or anti-US government, anti-military, anti-war, anti-imperialist, socialist, or worse, communist in anyway. Wouldn’t the freedom to speak include all topics of speech, not just those deemed appropriate by the very government that brags of its ideological inclusion?

This country, built on the separation of church and state, that somehow doesn’t see the irony in rigorously defending its use of the phrase “Under God” in a pledge it requires children to recite for a decades. A country against communism and cults, on the surface, that expects its citizens to drink the Kool Aid of it’s own greatness without questioning the failing Democracy that is more accurately labeled an Oligarchy, where corporations and profits decide life for millions, rather than the citizens themselves.

A country that was founded while fighting for independence, for the specific goal of religious freedom, yet one that symbolizes political loyalty by placinga hands on the Christian bible. A country constructed from the humble beginning of escaping religious persecution, yet creating a currency thatuses religious symbology and that same “Under God” insistence, once more for good measure.

A country that touts itself as the ‘World’s Greatest Democracy’ continues flouting a system whose last 2 out of 3 presidents lost the popular vote, where a disaster known as the electoral college effectively makes 7 swing states decide the fate of elections, and where the real voter fraud is voter suppression, initiating a longer list of requirements every year in order to exclude more and more, and especially the poor and disenfranchised, who would most likely dissent against a system that continues to prop up political elites.

The true paradigm, beyond its political failings and military horrors, is that Americans are suffering, and continuing to believe the fallacy of their own greatness. The country that claims the largest global economy by GDP still deals with racism, sexism, lynchings, poverty, starvation, and vast inequality that isn’t seen in their global counterparts, in many European countries, Australia & New Zealand, Japan or Scandinavia.

What will it take American’s to wake up to their insolence, and their government’s unbridled ego that continues claiming innocent lives and imprisoning non-whites for so much longer than they deserve, in the name of profit, under the Military and Prison industrial complexes?

The nature of this spiritually devoid society is that waking up to its insolence is the first step. Reclaiming their power, reeducating themselves on world history and spirituality, learning from Natives and banding together with their neighbors, growing their own food and getting out out of the Amazon, Facebook, Google- bubble, realizing that the truth will set them free, but only they can make the choice to search for it. For this gringa in particular, it has taken years of traveling outside my own borders to witness how much happier and easier life can be when you aren’t climbing the ladder toward some unattainable ‘American (fever) dream.’

The Gringo paradigm is that the United States government doesn’t want anyone to learn of its deep delusions, so they make it more difficult; they make textbooks a business, they put barriers in place to vote or drive or get a passport, they fund scientific research with public dollars and then put them behind a paywall rather than keeping knowledge in the public domain. The level of corruption, greed, dishonesty and delusion is that of every other government in the world, a byproduct of governments being composed of imperfect humans. But the difference with gringos, is that our government corruption doesn’t just enslave and exploit our own citizens; the darkness seeps beyond our borders, sending soldiers to every other country and insisting we are welcome, shipping our trash to Asia until China finally dissented, collecting data indiscriminately and naming whistleblowers a ‘threat to national security,’ when the CIA itself, and the NSA with its datamining, are the biggest threats to national security.

We must know of our global inferiority. We must know that we have been stunted, in every way: culturally, linguistically, spiritually, environmentally, and even stunted to continue accepting the lies we’ve been fed, to consent to spreading those same lies to our children.

The gringo paradigm is here to stay, but I for one to not approve. I live abroad and vote from abroad and refuse to give my tax dollars to war, preferring instead they go to corruption in the country I’ve chosen as my home. No place can be perfect, but I prefer a place where tax dollars aren’t proudly used to purchase jets and tanks to fill some general’s fantasy for domination, just because of his own insecurity at home or in the bedroom. Toxic masculinity, unbridled corporate greed, the lie that capitalism is the better system, all are alive and well in the United States, and the paradigm is that its citizens continue to accept business as usual.

A fairly verbose article for the purpose of saying: not every citizen.