Who is America?

With the announcement that Halliburton is moving their world headquarters to Dubai (the fictional country propped up by US petro dollars), I am forced to ponder what America really is. As a red blooded midwesterner, I joined the Marine Corps, in part, because I felt pride in fighting for liberty and freedom in the footsteps of Patrick Henry, Thomas Paine, John Adams, and many others. I've always believed that all persons have, at the very least, the right to live. And, I felt, that the one contribution America has made, in their wars time and again was to protect that right for all. As a man, there is a part of my core which states, I will give my life so that those important to me can live. As a sensitient animal, there is a deep part that says "I don't want to die". Liberty and freedom meant that so long as I obeyed the rules of the society in which I was a part, I and all others within that society could live without the fear of death from malicious persons. I believed that America went to war to ensure that other societies functioned similarly.

But, does the move of Halliburton, an organization who's used the might of America to place themselves in a position whereby countries could either borrow massively to fund Halliburton driven "development" which often those countries to, out of necessity of paying towards that debt, working with other American companies to exploit whatever resources they enjoyed. Any country who refused to participate in this forced capitalization, industrialization, and participation would face either destabilization by financial pressure (debt repayment demands), covert operations (CIA assassination), or military force.

Did we go to Iraq to provide a path to liberty and freedom for a people whom had lived under the despotic and tyrannical rule of a malicious and cruel dictator? Were we assisting a people who wished to be free to live a life of modern convenience, security, and stability?

Or did we move in to eliminate the UN created structures which were being willfully manipulated by France and Russia for their own financial advantage? Was Saddam manipulated into believing, as is custom among the Muslim culture, that one must saber rattle and demonstrate machismo to maintain the respect (and fear) of those around him even when there was never any real risk of the application of force?

But, will we, as Americans, be better off, be better able to live in freedom and liberty, if Iraq is freed and allowed to govern itself but within the a structure that mimics our own bill of rights and constitution?

It is my sense that Halliburton and others have abandoned America.

Is that a bad thing?

With Halliburton gone, perhaps we can, as a country, return to being who we believe we are. A country of good people steeped in liberty, able to build wealth through the sweat on our brow, the content of our character, and the depth of our thoughts. Have we reached a critical point whereby the body has rejected the cancer of a few very wealthy but immoral organizations? Can we return to a place where we manufacture our own goods, where we value each other’s contributions, when we acted as one people, a society of different cultures but of a common set of values?

Or are we just sheep, cogs in the Halliburton big business finance banker high fashion bloated spokesman world where a few people make billions while millions worry about their own survival.

Halliburton should go. And we as a nation should reject anything and anyone associated with it. But, that doesn’t mean, we are asking for socialists seizing the country. For nothing is worse than a government who seeks first and foremost to expand it’s role.
Give me liberty!

:P