We Americans are very spoilt. Yes, even those who live modest lives, or without a solid roof, in mobile homes. Most of the non white world has no clean drinking water, stable electricity, uncontaminated food, if at all. We, very stupidly, contaminate our own food, incidentally. With hormones, antibiotics, fertilizers and enhancers of every ilk, and make capitalism roll all over us. But that’s another story.

It should be mandatory for every American high schooler to spend one month in what we called a third world country. State-funded. YMCAs would do the trick. Most countries have them. (Do we no longer have exchange student programs?) They’d get grateful for their ‘American way of life’ in a heartbeat and stop bitching. They’d also realize perhaps that $$$s don’t necessarily translate into happiness. That toilet paper isn’t the apex of fulfillment. The world out there has mysteries to solve, cultures to explore. Most Americans spend live as unhappy troglodytes, victims of consumerism. I have been told by such people to “go back to where I come from,” not realizing, the fools, that they themselves came from across the seven seas not too long ago, killed off indigenous peoples and merrily proceeded to create the biggest holocaust of all time — slavery. Love them troglodytes! Heaven forbid I raise a voice against the American Holy Grail of capitalism! And so I shall. Go back.