The New Feudalism: Billionaires as Gods
We don’t live in a democracy anymore.
We live in a digital feudal system.
- The trillionaires are the gods.
- The billionaires are the nobility.
- The millionaires? The middle class — now just slightly less broke than the rest of us.
- And the rest?
- We’re the serfs.
We work 60-hour weeks to afford rent.
We skip meals to pay for insulin.
We beg for healthcare.
We beg for dignity.
And they?
They build space rockets while children die of dehydration.
They spend $135 billion a year on new iPhones.
We need $35 billion to give healthcare to every uninsured person on Earth.
We spend $10 trillion a year on crime — policing, prisons, violence, fear.
We could feed every hungry person on the planet for $5.7 billion.
We could give clean water to everyone for $135 billion.
We could end extreme poverty for less than what Amazon makes in one quarter.
And yet…
We choose war.
We Are 99.9% the Same
Look at your hand.
Look at your child’s hand.
Look at the hand of someone in Gaza.
Someone in Ukraine.
Someone in Lagos.
Someone in Appalachia.
We share 99.9% of our DNA.
That 0.1%?
That’s what makes you laugh like your grandmother.
That’s what makes her sing off-key.
That’s what makes you love differently.
That’s what makes you dream.
And we’re told:
That 0.1% is dangerous.
That difference is a threat.
That your skin, your prayer, your accent, your love — if it doesn’t look like ours — must be erased.
Isn’t that the most pathetic thing you’ve ever heard?
We are wired to connect.
But we’ve been taught to fear.
We are made to love.
But we’ve been sold hate as a product.
What happened to my country?
Growing up, I knew what conflict was. I was raised in a civil war. My childhood didn’t feel like much of a childhood. When there were no jobs, families fought just to meet their basic needs. I remember my mom counting out rice grains so that we’d each have an equal share. That’s the kind of life we lived: no home phone, a black-and-white TV with five channels that came on in the evening and shut down at 11 p.m. Even having an extra notebook was a luxury, and a single blank paper with a pencil brought me a lot of joy.
Back then, middle school was different. There was no social media, no influencers; we were just kids, innocent and completely disconnected from the kind of noise kids experience today. Once, a friend gave me a large piece of cardboard paper, and it felt like a gift. I rolled it up, brought it to school, and placed it on my desk. There was a girl who sat diagonally from me—two rows in front, to the right. She noticed the paper, pointed to it, and asked if she could borrow it. She wrote a love poem and handed it back, so, of course, I wrote her one in return. This became our ritual. Every day, I’d bring that paper, and we’d exchange poems.
Funny enough, I never actually spoke to her. Not one word. We only shared glances and those silent poems. There was room for maybe four more when my best friend mentioned he knew her father’s restaurant. He suggested we go find her. We walked about 15 minutes until he pointed across the street, “There it is.” Just as we were crossing the road, my friend suddenly collapsed. I turned to see blood on his stomach, and I knew then that he’d been hit by a sniper. I dragged him back to the curb. But he didn’t make it.
Death was close then; it was all around us. I was an altar boy for our local church, and most days, I’d help at funerals for kids my age. Open caskets, grieving mothers. I wanted to share their pain, hoping that connecting in our suffering could help us survive. All we could dream about was escape. For me, like for so many, the ultimate dream was America—the land of freedom, opportunity, hope.
When I turned 21, I got my visa, then my green card, and eventually my citizenship. I worked at a gas station where I’d pump gas, check oil, and air up tires. I met all kinds of people there, including a few celebrities. Every customer treated me with genuine respect, always asking where I was from, intrigued by my story. One woman invited me to Thanksgiving dinner with her family. Another helped me get my driver’s license and even let me use her car for the test. A sweet older lady sold me her late husband’s 1969 Dodge Charger in mint condition for $200 because she knew that was all I could pay. These people—their kindness and welcome—made America home for me, a home I’d defend with my life.
This is the America I fell in love with. The government isn’t perfect, and we wouldn’t want it to be. Our leaders are people, just like us. They don’t have all the answers and can’t fix everything alone, but they reflect the American spirit—the kindness, the openness. They once spoke as friends and neighbors, understanding that 535 different perspectives can shape a common purpose. They valued discussion, finding common ground, solving problems in ways that build rather than tear down.
So, what happened? Where did that go?
“Give me your tired, your poor,
Your huddled masses yearning to breathe free,
The wretched refuse of your teeming shore.
Send these, the homeless, tempest-tost to me,
I lift my lamp beside the golden door.”
These aren’t just words to me. They’ve always lived in our hearts, the hearts of the American people. And that’s worth holding onto. I still believe in the kindness, the welcome, and the sense of community that brought me here. I hope we find our way back to that—to a spirit of compassion, of neighbors working together, of true freedom.
And I’ll always be grateful for the America that welcomed me and gave me a chance. That’s why I’m sharing this story with you.
Something to think about.
The Indifference Between Families, Friends, and Lovers
There is a quiet, creeping horror in how we treat the people closest to us — not with malice, but with absence.
A mother calls her son every night.
He doesn’t answer.
She leaves a voicemail: “Just wanted to hear your voice.”
He doesn’t call back.
He’s too tired. Too busy.
Too distracted by the glow of a screen that doesn’t ask anything of him.
A husband comes home late.
His wife sits in the dark, waiting.
He doesn’t ask how her day was.
He doesn’t notice she hasn’t eaten.
He just says, “I’m tired,” and turns on the TV.
A friend texts: “I’m not okay.”
You reply: “That sucks.”
Then you go back to your life.
This is not cruelty.
This is indifference.
And it’s the same indifference that lets a child die of dehydration in a refugee camp while you swipe through TikTok.
The same indifference that lets a veteran sleep under a bridge while you complain about your rent.
The same indifference that lets a woman bleed out in an ER because she can’t afford a co-pay — and you shrug and say, “That’s just how it is.”
We have trained ourselves to treat human suffering like background noise.
The Real Crime Isn’t Theft. It’s Indifference.
Theft takes something physical:
money, food, dignity.
But indifference takes something unseen — and far more sacred:
the belief that you matter.
When you see someone in pain and do nothing — not because you can’t, but because you won’t — you are telling them:
“Your life is not worth interrupting mine.”
And that is worse than robbery.
Because thieves steal your wallet.
Indifference steals your soul.
And when enough people do it — when families stop listening, when friends stop showing up, when lovers stop holding hands in the dark — the entire architecture of human connection begins to rot.
You don’t need bombs to destroy a civilization.
You just need enough people to stop caring.
The Bullet Doesn’t Kill You. The Silence Does.
Think about this:
A soldier in a war zone sees a child run into the crossfire.
He drops his rifle. He runs. He pulls the child to safety.
He risks his life — because he sees.
Now think of the parent who sees their teenager crying in their room, but says, “Just go to sleep, you’re being dramatic.”
They don’t run. They don’t drop anything.
They just… keep scrolling.
Who is the real monster?
The one who fires the bullet?
Or the one who chooses not to hear the scream?
We have turned empathy into a luxury.
We have made compassion a voluntary act — something you do if you have time, if you’re in the mood, if it doesn’t inconvenience you.
But love is not optional.
Connection is not a perk.
Humanity is not a hobby.
We Chose This
- We chose to let algorithms decide what we care about.
- We chose to let marketing tell us our worth is measured in likes, followers, and shopping carts.
- We chose to believe that if we don’t see it, it doesn’t exist.
- We chose to call suffering “a problem for someone else.”
- We chose to worship efficiency over mercy.
- We chose to believe that if we’re not actively hurting someone, we’re innocent.
But innocence without compassion is just cowardice in a suit.
What If We Stopped Choosing Indifference?
- What if, instead of scrolling past a post about a mother selling her blood to feed her kids, you called your local food bank and volunteered?
- What if, instead of saying, “The system is broken,” you showed up at City Hall and demanded change?
- What if, instead of saying, “I can’t fix the world,” you held your partner’s hand when they cried — even if you didn’t know what to say?
- What if, for one day, you treated every human being you encountered — the barista, the janitor, the stranger on the bus, the relative you haven’t spoken to in years — as if their life mattered as much as yours?
That’s not idealism.
That’s rebellion.
Because the system is designed to make you numb.
To make you think you’re powerless.
To make you believe that love is too small to matter.
But it’s not.
Love is the only thing that can dismantle empires.
Not bullets.
Not laws.
Not speeches.
Love — the kind that sees, that stays, that shows up.
The Real Crime Isn’t Theft. It’s Indifference.
And the antidote?
Presence.
Not perfection.
Not grand gestures.
Just showing up.
Even when it’s hard.
Even when it’s inconvenient.
Even when you’re tired.
Even when you don’t know what to say.
Just say:
“I see you.”
And mean it.
That’s the revolution.
That’s the soul.
That’s the only thing left worth fighting for.
You are not powerless.
You are not alone.
You have always had the power to stop looking away.
The world isn’t broken because of policy.
It’s broken because we stopped looking into each other’s eyes.
So look.
Now.
Look — and don’t look away again.
There Is Still Hope — If We Remember Who We Are
The world doesn’t need another leader.
It needs a movement.
A quiet, relentless, beautiful one.
One that says:
“I see you.”
“Your pain is mine.”
“Your dignity is non-negotiable.”
“Your 0.1% is sacred.”
We don’t need more walls.
We need more bridges.
We don’t need more generals.
We need more teachers.
We don’t need more guns.
We need more gardens.
We don’t need more gods.
We need more neighbors.
The Choice Is Yours — Right Now
You can keep scrolling.
You can keep believing the lie that “someone else will fix it.”
You can keep letting billionaires buy your conscience.
Or…
You can remember:
We are 99.9% the same.
And that 0.1%?
That’s your gift.
That’s your song.
That’s your light.
And the world doesn’t need more emperors.
It needs more humans.
So now…
What will you do with your 0.1%?
Will you let them silence it?
Or will you let it echo — loud, wild, loving, and free?
The revolution won’t be televised.
It will be whispered.
In a hug.
In a meal shared.
In a vote cast for the vulnerable.
In a heart that remembers:
We are all made of the same dust.
And we all deserve to bloom.
Let this be your manifesto.
Let it be your call.
Not to hate.
Not to rage.
But to remember.
And then — to act.
With love.
Always with love.