Posted on 04/06/2003 5:20:45 AM PDT by NewHampshireDuo
When asked upon leaving the Constitutional Convention what kind of government he and his fellow delegates had delivered to the American people, Benjamin Franklin is reputed to have answered, "a republic, if you can keep it."
Franklin's famous reply echoed a sentiment shared by most of the other founders, whose view of the world was informed by the cautionary history of ancient Rome, a republic that degenerated over time into a despotic, all-powerful empire.
The founders visualized a different scenario for the fledgling United States of America; it would be and remain a true republic - a representative democracy - and avoid the pitfalls of empire. It would not engage in foreign adventures or conquests; it would serve instead as a model to the world of peaceful self-government by an enlightened people with, as Thomas Jefferson put it, "a decent respect to the opinions of mankind." It would lead idealistically by example.
Considerable water has passed under the bridge of America's pure republican ideals in the past 200 years, and many of the supports have washed away. In the 1840s, this country did undertake a war of conquest, annexing northern Mexico on the flimsiest of pretexts - over the fervent objections of a young Illinois congressman named Abraham Lincoln. At the end of the 19th century, America expanded its ambitions beyond the North American continent, acquiring colonies for the first time - in the Caribbean and the Far East - when it took Puerto Rico and the Philippines, this time over the objections of (among others), the nation's leading literary figure and democratic icon, Mark Twain.
Such imperial moments were thankfully few and short-lived. Upon reflection, the American people concluded that they didn't care to manage an empire, and they recoiled from foreign intervention. But the imperial genie remained in the bottle, available to be summoned again when national ambition, economic interest and the darker side of the American character coalesced, as they did intermittently over the course of the 20th century.
Regrettably, that time has come again. Under George W. Bush, the United States is once more embarked on one of its periodic flirtations with imperialism, aimed in this instance not at territorial aggrandizement, but at political, cultural and commercial dominance.
Empire building is part of the Bush inheritance. "New World Order" is the foreign policy initiative most identified with the current president's father, George H.W. Bush. That concept of projected American power has been refined by the son and expanded into "The National Security Strategy of the United States of America." Both are part of a continuous thread (broken temporarily during the Clinton years) extending back to the end of the Cold War. Their common message: America, the globe's only remaining superpower, is in charge; it will shape the world to suit its values and interests, and police that world as it sees fit.
The events of Sept. 11, 2001, provide the ongoing justification for this policy, the perception being that the United States is surrounded by real or potential enemies and must therefore lash out pre-emptively in self-defense, creating in the process a Pax Americana beneficial to the entire world - whether the world recognizes it or not. The Bush Pax Americana would have certain ancillary benefits:
It would provide a protective umbrella for the expansion of economic globalization, which is taken (both here and abroad) to be synonymous with Americanization, since a plurality of the world's multinational business corporations are based in the United States.
It would spread "market democracy" - laissez-faire capitalism within an electoral framework of government - the only feasible and permissible form of democracy, according to its advocates. (Social democrats need not apply.)
Although America's peculiar brand of imperialism is regularly celebrated as an exercise in bringing freedom and the rule of law to lesser countries or peoples in need of them, its more ignoble economic component (the imposition of market values and the defense of U.S. corporate interests) is something most Americans would rather not contemplate.
Nevertheless, if we are to properly evaluate the new imperialist blueprint foisted upon the country by the Bush regime, that aspect of it must be clearly understood.
The Bush doctrine of pre-emptive unilateralism and continual war in the name of American moral superiority, which functions at least partly as cover for the activities of our multinationals and, to a lesser extent, those of the West in general, is not really new. It has antecedents in the Cold War era, when the imperial impulse masqueraded as anticommunism. The CIA, our advance guard of empire, was then active in numerous countries on behalf of U.S. business interests; it engineered coups in Iran in 1953 (for American and British oil companies), in Guatemala in 1954 (for the United Fruit Company), and in Chilé in 1973 (for communications giant ITT), each time overthrowing governments that were democratic, but insufficiently sensitive to the needs of corporate capitalism.
What's different now is that the mini-imperialism of the late 20th century, which functioned in fits and starts and without popular endorsement, has been openly set forth as a comprehensive national policy that no longer needs to skulk about in the dark alleyways of government. Leading political figures, including the president, enunciate it frankly and proudly, without embarrassment.
The public, for its part, has been invited to follow the flag to all corners of the earth, regardless of the cost, to make the world safe for freedom, democracy and (incidentally) the international corporate agenda. The very same multinationals that have exploited the American people for years (via free-trade agreements, tax loopholes, deregulation, and the like) now want those very same people to underwrite their exploitation of the developing world through the Bush doctrine.
But there is another American tradition, one of anti-imperialism based on republican principles. On a grand scale, this non-interventionist tradition was expressed in the respective support given to such multilateral institutions as the League of Nations and the United Nations by Presidents Woodrow Wilson and Franklin Roosevelt.
On a smaller scale, it found expression in Roosevelt's "Good Neighbor Policy" forswearing imperialist ambitions in Latin America. Following Mexico's nationalization of its oil industry in 1938, for example, American petroleum companies (including the forerunner to Exxon) demanded U.S. military action to regain their expropriated properties. FDR refused, announcing that "the United States would show no sympathy to rich individual Americans who obtained large land holdings in Mexico for virtually nothing and claimed damages for seized property."
It remains to be seen if FDR's Democratic successors can articulate similar policy approaches in the face of a political opposition determined to combine a grandiose war on "evil" with an aggressive advancement of global corporate interests - all in the name of American values. The effectiveness of an alternative vision of America's role in the world will determine, in the end, whether we will be an empire or a republic. The stakes are high, for as historian Simon Schama has pointed out, empires invariably substitute dominance abroad for peace, justice and prosperity at home.
Wayne M. O'Leary is an Orono writer specializing in politics and economics.
Under George W. Bush, the United States is once more embarked on one of its periodic flirtations with imperialism, aimed in this instance not at territorial aggrandizement, but at political, cultural and commercial dominance.
Wrong again. We don't bother with third world dictators unless they present a clear danger to the US. The goal of the 1991 cease fire was not cultural nor commercial dominance. The goal was disarmament of a dangerous regime.
Please be advised that Portland, Maine is in Massachussetts.
these pukes need to give it up here. their only hope is for disaster to occur that keeps the masses from relizing they are killers and scam artists.
Sounds fabulous to me. Kill all the sub human scum who seek to destroy us for the reason that we are not from their savage, prehistoric, anti mind, knuckle dragging cult. Kill every last one, take their land, seize their property. Put in 7-11's, McDonalds, sell them Prozac and Lipitor. Tell them they are free, but make them taxable sources.
Then, it really will be a colony.
My condolences.
We don't want it. Got enough problems down here with Fat Teddy and Ketchup Boy Kerry.
The Left cannot be debated.
They can only be vanquished.
Bush, Bush, Reagan bad, FDR good
As far as your FDR theory, that was also a myth from a time long-gone.
What an excellent analysis of the piece. From the title, I began reading it thinking that the author might be laboring under the mistaken notion that America is a democracy. He dispelled that in the very first line. I read on and was really enjoying the points presented, but scratching my head in amazement that he could come up with such silly conclusions based on a few small and unfounded opinions. This writer has a good eye for facts, details and history, but has yet to get the Kool-Aid out of his system. Call him a future FReeper.
I learned an exceedingly clear example of that notion about a year ago on FR. Apparently, Oklahoma State University started a program in Ethiopia in the 1950's, showing them how to farm efficiently. By the early 1960's, Ethiopia was a net food exporter... then the Socialists took power. Millions have been starving and impoverished ever since. It seems almost impossible, but apparently vast amounts of important (and life-sustaining) skills and knowledge can be erased from a nation, even in the 20th Century.
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