By Alexander Diaz, LAc, FMP
Global wealth is growing. Populations are sharply on the rise. Hundreds of millions of people are attaining middle class lifestyles, and millions of people are becoming millionaires. Meanwhile, abject poverty rules the lives of more than two billion persons, much of which is an unnecessary externality of wealth disparity and poor planning and distribution.
Since 9/11/2001, the U.S. has engaged in two major foreign wars, and sent soldiers and air-strikes to many other conflicts. Instead of combating militant islamists, this policy has ignited a brushfire of jihad that crosses international borders with impunity. Moderately stable nations such as Iraq, Afghanistan, Pakistan, Yemen, and Libya have become failed states, and breeding grounds for the genesis of trauma. This trauma cycles out in infinite spirals, exacerbating ethnic, religious and political tensions and creating vast humanitarian crises.
All war defies the containment of artificial borders. Just as the war in Vietnam spread its horror to Lao, Cambodia and China, the Iraq war laid the foundation for the emergence of ISIS, and the war in Syria. Similarly, as the U.S.’ ousting of the Taliban from Afghanistan temporarily ‘liberated,’ the Afghan people, neighboring Pakistan became host to Taliban forces, who are now rapidly re-taking Afghanistan, despite the opposition of the unmotivated military of the Afghan state.
Refugee crises engendered by such conflicts make waves into Europe and east Asia. As millions seek asylum and safety, wealthier and more stable nations such as Germany, France, England, Turkey, etc are trending towards nationalist and ethnically xenophobic political policies, largely in order to maintain national identity and the fiscal sustainability of the state.
As such, formerly liberal nations are taking increasingly racist and hateful stances.
This global trend is also rising in the United States. The millions of deportees sent away by the Obama administration are now being followed by millions more. Civil liberties and the protections of the constitution are eroded, with full public mandate and little protest or even awareness. This propaganda-supported xenophobia is a convenient fiction used by many historic rulers to hide the true motives of the state.
In effect, we now witness the full expression of wealth disparity, resource exploitation and the dismantling of public welfare. Democratically socialist measures hard won by our ancestors are dismissed with full congressional and judiciary fiat, in favor of corporate welfare bordering on the realm of facism. The rich get richer, and the poor get poorer.
The United States is quickly waning as a world power. China is rising to displace it, and China is not alone. Outside of the U.S., nation after nation comes to understand the risks and dangers of following the U.S. program. The hypocrisy and illegitimacy of our actions has alienated the alliance of nations. All of those nations now look to the future and understand the futility of working with the U.S. and its foreign policy arms: The World Bank and the International Monetary Fund.
With its position in the world, its universities, its resources, its media, its markets, its personnel, and its military, the United States could have chosen to write a truly benevolent global future. But the actions of our foreign and domestic policies were never in keeping with the moral agenda stated and often used to rationalize our sordid works.
We could be living in a world of clean energy, peace, and the rule of international law and morality. But instead, we live in a destabilized world, where economic and environmental collapse seem imminent. This profound misfortune, however, is not written in stone, nor is it impossible to reverse.
Indeed, a vital, peaceful, and prosperous world is not only possible, it is probable and likely. Though we are unaware of it due to the poor reporting of our media, there is now a global renaissance of sustainable thought and direct action. Governments, Non-Governmental Organizations, Corporations, and individual and community actors are all moving towards a common source of ecological stewardship.
A vast association of nations is forming through the auspices of humble diplomacy and the Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank. The One Belt One Road initiative is linking China to Central Asia, Southern Asia, Southeast Asia, Russia, Korea, Japan, and Oceania. The arteries of trade, power, rail, and commodities reach directly to Western Europe and Eastern Africa. Railheads traverse the African Continent to the wealthy up and coming nations of Western Africa, and a vast canal project in Nicaragua offers access through the middle of the western Hemisphere.
These nations, who are coming to include even staunch U.S, allies like the United Kingdom and Australia, are gradually and rapidly dissociating themselves from dependence on trade in U.S. dollars, U.S. foreign aid, U.S. military occupation, World Bank loans and the like, in favor of a gold-backed currency, the Chinese RMB. They are receiving billions of dollars in investment for infrastructure, education, public health, and the basis for a globalized trade that brings actual benefit to their populaces.
Within this rapid growth are certain inexorable trends that take root in the center [China] and are becoming quickly adopted in the periphery. Among these are green technology, ethical morality in government, sound fiscal planning, non-violent foreign policy, stable trade relations, an increasing liberalization and democratization of the social commons, and the search for happiness.
While China is currently a user of Coal and Nuclear energy, Chinese policy is to invest in vast green energy infrastructure. As pilot projects succeed and provide data, they are then repeated at lightning speed, a prerogative of authoritarian rule that is pragmatic in its decision making. Within a short span of years, China will mirror and then surpass the green policies, urban and hydrologic planning of the most advanced nations such as Singapore and Sweden. Chinese authorities are aware that such environmental initiatives go hand in hand with wealth, public prosperity, and as such, the continued mandate of the people to maintain party leadership.
With wealth comes the ability to invest in sustainable infrastructure. While the U.S. chose and chooses to instead denude its environment, infrastructure and people, China heads an alliance that takes the opposite tack. As they do so, they produce millions of brilliant minds who are enabled and supported to create even more sustainable growth. As nations mature and prosper under the new trade agreements and arteries of physical and intellectual interchange, they have positive incentives to model this sustainable growth for their own wellness.
This shift comes never too soon: The actual material and environmental problems of the world are grave. Unfortunately, the current moral leadership of global public policy has destroyed its own credibility through war, exploitation, and abhorrent foreign diplomacy. We can only hope that emerging nations can quickly de-colonize their cultural mindsets, reducing and eliminating the supremacy of American thinking and policy.
For Americans, this time is a particularly depressing era: We have borne witness to decades of immoral demagoguery and paid taxes towards war crimes and genocide. The current president is the worst of a lineage of puppets, whose strings were pulled by an immature and egoistic elite having no understanding or concern for the environment or common weal.
Thus, we as Americans need to release ourselves from the fear-anger-hopelessness cycle of being spectators and commentators to our own incestuous internal dialogue. It is not important that the U.S. be a moral leader or have ultimate power. It never was a moral leader: this was a convenient fiction used to delude us to the true purpose of our policies: the enrichment of the few.
The sooner that we as Americans can relinquish this false narrative of the erstwhile moral supremacy of our nation and the grief-laden tragedy of its demise, the sooner we can make cogent action for the global future.
That action need not be turned towards Washington; the leaders of the state will do as they please, and continue their evil works, invasions, and economic exploitations. But on the local level, we can make huge differences.
Locally, we can thrive. We can honor our landscape, pressure our state, county and city leaders, and take care of ourselves and each other. We need every American to be healthy, and freed of the shackles of prescription drugs, mood enhancers, addictive foods and substances, false beliefs, and poverty. As we emerge into full health and personal power, we can decide how best to serve in the world.
And amidst this healing journey, which is itself experiencing a quiet renaissance that goes unreported by our media, is a potent and timely task: We must convert dollar wealth, i.e. electronic savings and cash money, into real wealth, i.e. property, education, the means of production, and personal wellness.
This task is so important because we are already witnessing rapid inflation and a decrease in the value of the dollar. As such it is imperative that we act now to secure the best possible sustainable future for ourselves, even as our leaders fail to chart a course towards sanity.
While I grow my practice of Chinese Medicine, earning more money and healing others, I plow that money back into the soil of my family’s health and wealth position. We now seek to own property in the most sustainable place we have found, Hawaii. We purchase naturopathic treatments, massages, herbal medicines and wholesome experiences that grow our unity and spiritual alignment. We move decisively towards a micro-future of wellness that we hope best supports the macro-future of global sustainability. And we release ourselves from the drama of American Politics, and look to the greater trends in the world for solace.
We rest assured that millions of human beings are striding towards peace and sustainability. It is now our task as Americans to learn how to humble ourselves, and join the alliance of global actors motivated to heal the problems of our world, and create a better future for our Children’s Children.