Will Democracy and Civilization ever take hold in the U.S.?
In the 18th Century, autocracies, monarchies, theocracies and oligarchies ruled the nations of the world. The general rule was: the rulers are everything, the peasants are nothing. There were a few exceptions. In the Northeast corner of what now is the United States, a matriarchy ruled a group of Native Americans known as the League of the Iroquois. Elder women met and made the decisions and rules for the tribes. The future of the people was central to their decisions. How will this affect the seventh generation, was a common test in decision-making.
Colonists began arriving from Europe and some observed the harmonious lives and institutions of the League of the Iroquois and saw that societies can function without kings and royalty. They decided that they could create a nation where ideals and principles, not kings or ruling classes, were supreme. This was the unique foundation of the United States of America.
The United States became a model for civilizing forces in the world. France quickly followed the U.S. example. As decades passed, more and more people demanded the supremacy of ideals.
Unfortunately, the supremacy of ideals was no match for the animal herd instincts instilled over millions of years of evolution. Ideals never set down deep roots in the U.S. Americans espoused democracy, justice and equality but never fully practiced them. The appeal of the alpha leader, the father figure, the autocrat, the authoritarian personality always prevailed in the end. The reflexive desires to demonize and fear the stranger and the strange, to huddle into a herd, to stampede, always overwhelmed the concepts of values, ideals and principles.
America always was ripe for Fascism. The U.S. would have joined the Fascist states in the 1930s except for the intervention of two enlightened people: Franklin Delano Roosevelt and General Smedley Butler.
As the world moves into the Third Millennium, the U.S. retreats deeper into the Second Millennium. The Iraq Wars of 1990 through the present were an acid test of true Americans. The 2.5 million deaths in Iraq, ten percent of the population, reveal that Americans are a savage, cruel, primitive people. It’s doubtful they ever will evolve into civilized citizens. Their animal natures lurk so close to the surface that they can be unleashed by a simple fabricated image. In the Iraq Wars, all the nation’s institutions betrayed the ideals of America. Only a handful of citizens, mostly government bureaucrats, saw or even tried to see the evil, criminal forces stampeding them into acts of reprehensible savagery. True patriots are precious few. Jingoists are abundant.
Americans condemn the use of weapons of mass destruction then use them themselves. They raise the alarm that the enemies are so barbaric they would use nuclear weapons. The U.S. is the only nation that ever used them and it frequently threatens to use them again. The hypocrisy uncloaks the two-dimensional mentality of the thugs that dominate U.S. policy and make up the majority of the citizenry.
Americans are unfit to hold power in the Third Millennium, but, like a plague, cancer or evil, they cling on tenaciously.
Colonists began arriving from Europe and some observed the harmonious lives and institutions of the League of the Iroquois and saw that societies can function without kings and royalty. They decided that they could create a nation where ideals and principles, not kings or ruling classes, were supreme. This was the unique foundation of the United States of America.
The United States became a model for civilizing forces in the world. France quickly followed the U.S. example. As decades passed, more and more people demanded the supremacy of ideals.
Unfortunately, the supremacy of ideals was no match for the animal herd instincts instilled over millions of years of evolution. Ideals never set down deep roots in the U.S. Americans espoused democracy, justice and equality but never fully practiced them. The appeal of the alpha leader, the father figure, the autocrat, the authoritarian personality always prevailed in the end. The reflexive desires to demonize and fear the stranger and the strange, to huddle into a herd, to stampede, always overwhelmed the concepts of values, ideals and principles.
America always was ripe for Fascism. The U.S. would have joined the Fascist states in the 1930s except for the intervention of two enlightened people: Franklin Delano Roosevelt and General Smedley Butler.
As the world moves into the Third Millennium, the U.S. retreats deeper into the Second Millennium. The Iraq Wars of 1990 through the present were an acid test of true Americans. The 2.5 million deaths in Iraq, ten percent of the population, reveal that Americans are a savage, cruel, primitive people. It’s doubtful they ever will evolve into civilized citizens. Their animal natures lurk so close to the surface that they can be unleashed by a simple fabricated image. In the Iraq Wars, all the nation’s institutions betrayed the ideals of America. Only a handful of citizens, mostly government bureaucrats, saw or even tried to see the evil, criminal forces stampeding them into acts of reprehensible savagery. True patriots are precious few. Jingoists are abundant.
Americans condemn the use of weapons of mass destruction then use them themselves. They raise the alarm that the enemies are so barbaric they would use nuclear weapons. The U.S. is the only nation that ever used them and it frequently threatens to use them again. The hypocrisy uncloaks the two-dimensional mentality of the thugs that dominate U.S. policy and make up the majority of the citizenry.
Americans are unfit to hold power in the Third Millennium, but, like a plague, cancer or evil, they cling on tenaciously.
posted by Unknown at 11:14 AM
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