Understanding the American political scene of 2016-17 is a bewildering prospect. The following opinion will be of little consequence to anyone. But...here's the attempt to make some sense of it all.
The Grand Experiment of 1776 and the democratic Republic in North America thus begun has failed....its political philosophy having been stated in the Declaration of Independence and its legal basis having been written in The Constitution of the United States. It is obvious that we have abandoned our stated philosophy, and we have left the purpose of the Constitution far behind us. We have allowed the government to evolve into a political system which principally resembles a Fascist State.
Perhaps the following analogy will help convey the reasoning behind this conclusion...
A few hundred years ago after the dawning of the great enlightenment, many individuals were known by their profession: wheel right, cobbler, tinker, mason, baker, etc. Generally a cobbler made a pair of shoes or repaired shoes and earned for himself the value of his labor in some direct form. He earned value for value his labor and it belonged to him. When the industrial revolution came along and labor became a commodity individuals were forced to sell their labor to industrial enterprises but had little control as to the value assigned to their labor. The worker had to take the value which was offered or live in poverty. Since his labor was worth much more than he was paid, the remaining value was turned into profit for the industry which used his labor. Nothing basically wrong with that...except that the worker had no control over the amount of value assigned to his labor. That basic system has been in affect fro several hundred years and still is.
There is a basic flaw in this system which created a social injustice among the working class. That is the levers of power in the system belong entirely in the hands of the owners of the industry (capital). Very little power is in the hands of the worker (labor). This flaw has been accepted as normal and unavoidable. It has allowed Capital the freedom to create grievous abuses in the workplace and to expand these abuses even to the point of the creation of an international slave trade and the use of human slaves both historically and in the present time to maximize the profits of capital. It included inhumane practices like child labor, dangerous working conditions, even deadly work environments, with no provisions for loss of life or limb. Depending on where one travels, these same practices can still be found occurring now in our time in parts of the world.
This economic system is called Capitalism.
There is a mostly buried history of an era where the common people of the world fought back against this theft of personal power over ones own body and ones own labor. Various labor unions were formed and political organizations were formed to present a united resistance to the abuses of Capital. During certain historical periods Labor gained power and were successful in obtaining a more equatable compensation for their work. But in recent years in the United States, Capital has gained the upper hand in this struggle by fighting labor unions and laws benefiting Labor by political bribery to repeal laws and practices which gave clout to Labor. They have also been successful in getting new laws passed which severely limit the ability of Labor to regain its power to bargain for fair treatment of workers. Thousands of workers find themselves in the position of being unable to sustain a living on the wages they receive for their work. This is a political situation and it has crated the consequences that the United States has evolved into a fascist state. As a nation over several hundred years we built the most thriving booming economic juggernaut the world has ever witnessed. We became the richest nation in history through capitalism. But somewhere along the way we allowed Capital to totally dominate the media and the people in government and began to equate democracy with capitalism as one and the same. Capital developed the idea that if anyone in the world believed in an economic system which was different from capitalism and actually attempted to practice a different economic system they were enemies of democracy. It meant that if a government promoted any form of socialism we labeled them communists even if their socialist government was the democratic choice of the people of the nation in question.
An example of how that worked is: some sovereign nations with democratic governments created the policy that the natural resources of that nation were a part of the common property which belonged to the people and the people of that nation deserved a larger share of that value than just having a job which made international Capital richer and richer. The international Capitalists loathe this "nationalization" of a countries resources. It is their view that the worlds resources are "up for grabs" for those who are powerful enough to exploit them and profit from that exploitation.
The United States evolved into a nation , a government, which places the utmost importance on the promotion of capitalism and made that the number one purpose of government. It meant that we wished to pressure all other nations into the same economic system which we practiced. In fact the US created intentional organizations which promoted our economic system around the various countries of the world and placed enormous economic pressure on their governments to cooperate by allowing US companies to exploit resources both natural and Labor as if their nations were our own nation. These organizations include the International Monetary Fund, and the World Bank. The strategy is to get the other nations in debt by granting loans while demanding changes in their domestic laws which benefit international corporations for profit. The US appointed ourselves as the economic world police force, putting down communism and socialism militarily. All for greater and greater profits for our massive world corporations.
Anyone who knows our historical documents, know that we "say" we believe the purpose of government is to "preserve" basic human rights as is stated in the Declaration of Independence, but we have pushed that purpose aside in order to promote capitalism both at home and around the world.We have said to the world, "If you do not practice our economic model, you are not truly a democracy." This perspective dominated our domestic policies and our foreign policy. This perspective has grown to dominate all three branches of the American government. Preservation of our inalienable rights has fallen far behind the other "more important" purposes of government.
If you wish to either question or debate this thesis, here is this first of many many other possible proofs that we began in the beginning to place profits above human rights when we struck the issue of human slavery from the first draft of the Declaration of Independence. This is what was protested and removed: (speaking of King George III of England, a passage critical of the international slave trade in 1776) "He has waged cruel war against human nature itself, violating its most sacred rights of life and liberty in the persons of a distant people who never offended him, captivating and carrying them into slavery in another hemisphere or to incur miserable death in their transportation thither. This piratical warfare, the opprobrium of infidel powers, is the warfare of the Christian King of Great Britain. Determined to keep open a market where Men should be bought and sold,...." This passage was written by an individual who owned more than 200 human beings who posses no trace of personal freedom and dignity, Thomas Jefferson. This is a perfect example of how we have rationalized our emphasis on profits and greed and have consistently spoke from both sides of our mouths while claiming the high moral ground and that we the "shining city on a hill for all to follow and emulate".
The United States chose profits over human rights. We started early in our history toward fascism. We have now arrived at the station.
