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Fighting for the Soul of the American Dream - by Stephen Lendman
Republics are nations where heads of state aren't monarchs or despots in which citizens elect officials to represent them.
<blockquote>Merriam Webster calls them "government(s) in which supreme power resides in a body of citizens entitled to vote and is exercised by elected officers and representatives responsible to them and governing according to law."</blockquote>
Thomas Paine once said:
<blockquote>"a republic is supposed to be directed by certain fundamental principles of right and justice, from which there cannot, because there ought not to, be any deviation."
"(It) is executed by a select number of persons, who act as representatives, and in behalf of the whole, and who are supposed to (govern) as the people would do were they all assembled together...."
"When a people agree to form themselves into a republic (they) mutually resolve and pledge themselves to each other, rich and poor alike, to support this rule of equal justice among them....A republic, properly understood, is a sovereignty of justice, in contradistinction to a sovereignty of will."</blockquote>
America never followed Paine's principles. Since the 1980s, Democrats and Republicans adopted neoliberal harshness. Bush I continued Reagan's policies. Clinton hardened them. Bush II much more, and Obama matched Star Trek by going where no administration went before.
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