These are confusing and depressing times for the American people. The United States is in the midst of an economic crisis and fighting a three front war (Iraq, Afghanistan, and the Horn of Africa). Simply put, it is evident that we are just tired. Can the issues facing the United States today be attributable to cultural ignorance despite our moniker as the “melting pot of the world?”
Immigrants continue to flock to the United States to make a new and more prosperous life for themselves. Because of the diversity within, it is hard to pinpoint the “culture of the United States.” Rather, we have multiple cultures within—not just one.
Though the US has assimilated people from various ethnic backgrounds, there remains an overriding cultural clash with an overarching or meta US culture. The culture I speak of is the “culture of elitists.” This so-called culture is characterized by ethnocentricity and ignorance.
The culture of elitists is not defined in terms of ethnic ties and customs but by power and status. Those who project this cultural identity include today’s politicians, military leaders, large corporation owners and managers, and other key power holders and leaders. Whether they will ever willingly admit it or not this cultural identity engrains the notion that its members are better than everyone else in this world. The truth of the matter is that most of these individuals are nothing without the rest of us.
America began with the declaration: “We the People.” A politician is nothing without constituents willing to vote for him or her, a major corporation is nothing without the workers who produce the product or service, a military leader is nothing without his or her troops. They continuously get rich and wealthy because of everything everyone else does to make them look good. And we the peasants of this ridiculous caste system created by these elitists get nothing in comparison to what these elitists get in return for the hard work put out.
Ted Nugent put it best in his book “Ted, White, and Blue” when he said basically that he is his politician’s boss and we should not be paying taxes without representation. The problem is though that we fail to hold this culture of elitists responsible for what is taking place today in the United States. We fail to perform our duties as tax payers in serving as bosses to those we elect.
Some individuals have made comments that the United States is collapsing. A recent analyst within the Russian government (name withheld) has publicly stated that the United States is about to face its own civil war. This analyst knows a little something about the elitist culture within the United States. The reason this disaster could occur is because the tiers and levels of advisors within this elitist caste system does indeed exist within the United States.
Progress in the war in Afghanistan could be made if National Security leadership would listen to those outside their cultural elite. The Afghans want this war to be over and some opposition leaders were and still are willing to speak for hopes of peace. The elitist fail to see that the majority of assets expended in Afghanistan are not needed and wasting billions of tax dollars producing little to no positive effect to achieve victory. In fact, there is no written baseline to even determine what victory constitutes in Afghanistan! Either way though, why don’t they know this information? Because they won’t listen to anyone who doesn’t put on fancy clothes and have a seat at “the” table in Washington D.C.
Written baselines for Afghanistan are not the only overlooked elements that point to the grave ignorance on the part of our elitist culture. Politicians intervening into privately owned industries also prove how ignorant they really are. The United States is not a social state. It is a Republic that again is built on “We the People.” When high level managers and owners run to the government leaders you have two elitist organizations working together. Again, such mergers within the elitist culture presents grave danger.
Think back in history when the United States was an Agro based economy. Even then the elitists needed to work a little. As time passed, we became an industrialized economy and although some elitists still worked, many began to realize that they could get paid handsomely to simply sit around and tell people what to do without being productive themselves. Today, we have transitioned into a technological economy that reduces the amount of physical labor needed to produce anything. This allowed many to forget what it feels like to work out in the sun all day sweating to produce. We have more and more elitists popping up every day. They don’t want to work, listen, or implement ideas from the peasants like you and me.
What happens when people like us decide to just stop producing and our elitists start falling off their high horses within our own caste system because they become forced to do a little hard labor? That Russian analyst becomes famous for his prediction that the United States will eventually collapse. Why? Because these so-called elitists forgot what it means to sweat a little while working to earn a dime.
Without a doubt history runs in patterns. We have been in this pattern before; however each time we were in it we got out differently. How will we collectively decide a means needed to get out successfully of this disaster? One suggestion is simply hold this elitist culture accountable and start taking initiative ourselves. Stand up America, stand up and represent not your politicians rather represent “We the People!”
Kerry Patton served in the U.S. Defense and Justice departments, and as a contractor within the Homeland Security and State departments. He has worked in South America, Africa, the Middle East, Asia and Europe, focusing on intelligence and interviewing current and former terrorists, including members of the Taliban. His upcoming book, "Sociocultural Intelligence: The New Discipline of Intelligence Studies," is due out in June 2010. Currently, Mr. Patton teaches for Henley Putnam University. He is also a public speaker and available for speaking engagements.
