Biting the hands that feed you?
I was just on a messaging board and a discussion about world affairs came up and America was mentioned, everyone had their own opinions and expressed them, no malice, everyone was just trying to lay down some facts and logic. However there is a certain type of Jamaican (or Use-To-Be-Jamaican) who takes extra exception to anyone who has an open and objective opinion about America. If you are not singing their praises then you are ungrateful wretches as they proclaimed that we are biting the hands that feed us, just because people express their opinion.
Now this speaks volume to me, it defines how some Jamaicans think of themselves and their country, he declared that we get a lot of American tourist so we are being fed, in other words we are being taken care of by the goodness of their hearts and as such should not have anything critical to say.
Jamaica pumps US$2.1742 Billion a year into the US Economy in the form of imports.
This outlook remains me of the poem by the English poet Rudyard Kipling titled "The White Man's Burden" but instead of the white man we now have a "use-to-be Jamaicans" proclaiming that we are The American's Burden and that we are subservient in every way. Not proud men and women, but like animals on a farm, we are being fed.
Jamaica engages in the business of borrowing just like America engages in the Business of borrowing from China and we both pay interest on loans, plus repay said loans but for us he sees it is a Hand out and for them it is business. Yes we are not the biggest country in the world, we have little or no power, we are not the movers or shakers of this planet, except when it comes to tracks, but that does not say we are not educated, proud men and women who can evaluate the planet we live on and make solid opinions and be objective and call a spade a spade.
It is how some of us see ourselves and our country that I have a problem with, small minds who are ashamed of their very existence, people who think we are and will always be bottom feeders and exist on our knees, only at the mercy of others.
Freedom of speech is the political right to communicate one's opinions and ideas via speech, This right is protected under the First Amendment of the United States Constitution.
Somehow I get the impression that the United States of America was not created for people who behave like automatons, robots who do what they are told, with words like home of the free it was never design to force conformity on its people. This is a country that boasts strength through diversity and tolerance.
So why is it then that American centric individual are trying to force conformity, with us or against us, if your opinion is not 100% pro-American, defending wrongs as if it was right or the same as my opinion then hand in your visas, green cards, passports, citizenship and leave the United States. I am sure none of the application forms have a section that says you must agree with everything, you must not have an opinion, you must not be objective and if you feel the need to be, then leave or don't come here.
These American centric individual who are trying to force conformity are always either, Red Necks, Use-To-Be Jamaicans or Jamaicans who don’t even live in America but idealize it from a far. Not too long ago a very opinionated, objective and outspoken Facebook friend of mine Jane, voiced her opinion and as a result she was verbally attacked by a Person who does not even live in America. However Jane is an American of British origin, living and working in America, raising her family in America and as far as I am concerned it is her American citizenship that guarantees her the right to voice her opinion and to be objective and to call a spade a spade.
She does not have to agree with everything that is happening around her, however she was attacked and told by a person who does not even live in America nor is America her birth country to leave if she does not like it. In this case liking it means she should never have an opposing view, never criticize anything about The United States and must always be a yes person and somehow I do not think this is what the American founding fathers intended, that type of opinion is very communist like, very Soviet Union. So very China like and as such it is these individuals who do not get the concept and ideals of the United States of America. The exchange was brutal and totally uncalled for, why would a person who does not live in America take such brutal exception to anyone having an opinion that does not jive with theirs, it boggles the mind.
I do not think Jamaicans really understand the concept of Diplomacy. Diplomacy implies respectful negotiation and agreement, sharing a common ground, some give and take. Diplomacy is not, do this or I will make you suffer, that is a mafia like enforcement level threat. There is nothing more belittling and dehumanizing than to tell me that we had better do what the USA commands us to do or else they will hurt us and make us suffer. That to me is paramount to slavery and subjugation. Living in fear of oppression is no way to live. We were not placed on this earth to be enslaved or commanded. We were not placed on this earth to gravel like invertebrates and live at the mercy and expense of others. I cannot bring myself mentally to think on those levels and I have no respect for anyone who tells me otherwise.
Us Jamaicans also hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness and a Freedom of Speech.
We are more than a beach, we are a country damn it!
We are more than a beach, we are a country damn it!
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