Once a majority of business was based on speculation and trade in Eastern commodities, the perpetuation of the slave trade and most of the large farming estates had been consolidated under a small group. The only way that wealth could be distributed among the business and financial elites was through more expansion, more war, or by the occasional massacre and dispossession of rivals by the politically empowered. During the shakeup following the war against the pirates, businessmen were essentially allowed to have their own courts. Thus, they were allowed to self-regulate, so that another means of acquiring resources and wealth was to bring false charges--through the services of a good lawyer--against another businessman.
How many of us can look at this brief history of an Empire trying to preserve it's Republican origins and not see more than just a few similarities?
Rampant corruption by a monied elite dedicated to the preservation of aggressive enemies of the state, private mercenary armies and the seemingly permanent establishment of violent men dedicated to perpetual warfare and domestic security services for the wealthy, a temporary emergency used by politicians to consolidate power and secure resources, surely, these are all things which we should consider. They are things which the Founders of the Country, and almost every person involved with public service within this country, were aware of up until the middle of the last century.
Trading one corrupt, ambitious, and selfish leader for another, who would simply seek to privately aggrandize an opposing group of manipulative, money-hungry interests at the expense of our Constitution and civil liberties, is not a great solution to the problems that our society faces.
Unless the criminality and irregularity of this administration is recorded by history and admitted by whichever administration succeeds it, we will have crossed a threshold on the way to sheer despotism and will further realize tyranny with a distinctly imperial character.
And as the current administration gets ready to "leave office," but not power, since it is clear they determine policy by acting both within and outside of our elected government, we should pay particular attention to the possibility that they will ratchet up the current conflict in Central Asia and the Middle East, thus trying to lay the seeds for a crisis which will allow them to take political power once again.
I can't help but think that the current leaders of this administration, like the war-hungry, grasping, Roman mercenaries and militants who preceded them, are taking great care to make sure that their industry of intrigue, sabotage, espionage, murder and extortion, will be safe from the designs of a popular government.
That being said, it is clear that democrats must demand transparency within the government, must demand free and fair publicly-funded elections, and must demand the retraction of the Cold War military forces, as well as a calculated redeployment of our armed forces so that we are protected at home instead of provoking nations and people around the world. The courts must repair and clarify the damages that have been unleashed on the Constitution and the Bill of Rights, and the criminal leaders of this administration must be tried in the criminal courts, or the court of public opinion, so that men and women who share their designs will never be allowed near the controls of our government again.
Our unwillingness to confront the realities of a Post-Cold War epoch has cost us dearly, and if we are to regain any of our rights and liberties as defined by the Constitution and exercised by U.S. citizens for nearly 200 years, we must consider ending the many national emergencies that have been declared since the end of the second World War, or else we will face perpetual emergency and find ourselves without a nation.
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