Is America Heading the Way of All Empires?

ARE WE AN EMPIRE? 

AND IF SO, DOES ANYONE CARE?

by Tom Barnes, USCG (Ret.) – B.A. B.S. M.Ed. M.A. M.A.  Staff Writer for VT

The short answer here is yes, we are an empire.  We more than meet the definition.  The really important part to consider is (1) should we care? and (2) do we care?  Lets look at some indications of where we are headed as a nation.

Gordon Duff’s latest article "An Open Letter to the American Gestapo" got me thinking.  He is right.

Our troops are all volunteer, they are no longer conscripted from the community at large.  And that means that not everybody is required to serve.  That is very bad.  Their uniforms grow more imperial with every year which runs counter to a citizens’ army and navy.  They are starting to look like uniforms that one used to see in the old movies about European Armies of the 19th Century.  To be frank, a gaudy uniform is a symbol of a gaudy and empty people.  Our men and women in uniform look ridiculous.  They look like extras in an opera.  It is just that simple. 

The uniforms of the Armed Forces of a Republic should not resemble a dozen or more costumes from an old movie.  The uniform represents who we are as a nation.  It should be plain, strong, simple and straightforward.  It should represent hard work, clear thinking and discipline.  It should not represent Empire.  And frankly, it does just that.  Our people look as gaudy as the Roman Legions did.  That is a big hint and it should not be overlooked.  We are dressing our troops as soldiers from an Empire. 

The Roman Legions, that part of Rome that enforced its will upon its neighbors and its citizens, changed subtly but decisively when Rome evolved from a Republic to an Empire. Without going into an explanation here, I invite everyone reading this article to first read the excellent article on the Roman Legions posted on Wikipedia. 

The point here is that since the Legion was Rome’s first choice when it came to enforcing its will upon others, it took on a role very different than the armies of surrounding nations and peoples.  It was not about defense, it was about the export of Roman power in a most efficient and brutal manner at the will of the Emperor.  Today in the USA we operate in a very similar manner.  We frankly have not had a Defense Department for generations, what we have is an Offense Department.  In my view, this stretches back to the Spanish American War of 1898. 

Depending on who you talk to, advocates of this group of theories will say that the forces of American capitalism have used the American armed forces as an illicit extension of American economic might from anywhere around 1898 and the capturing of Spanish possessions in the Spanish American War to somewhere around the beginning of Word War II when it was obvious that the only way that global fascism could be stopped was for the U.S. to get into the war. The sea lanes and land routes of trade had to be kept open for free market economies in the West, so we went to war. In other words, we willingly stepped into the role of Empire.  The only argument among scholars is about exactly when this happened.  They virtually all agree that in fact it has happened. 

This is not a personal thing.  This is not “this group” or “that group” or “this President” or “that President” deciding to use the Army or Navy or the CIA or the Department of Agriculture or the Peace Corps to capture foreign markets when we cannot use macroeconomics to do it ethically.  This is probably more akin to a dynamic. Its a sort of macroeconomic version of the dysfunctional emotional and psychological dynamics in an alcoholic family.  In other words, the temptation to use force and intimidation and subversion to win over foreign markets is kind of like a large, national version of the drunken father beating everybody in the family to “keep them in line”.  Anything he does within his drunken mindset is justified (in his mind) by the fact that he must maintain control at all costs.  

And just like in a highly dysfunctional alcoholic or drug induced family dynamic, everyone is silent.  Everyone tacitly agrees not to see the obvious by their behavior.  And even more importantly, everyone in the national family agrees that the obvious fact that we have been acting like an Empire for about a hundred years must never be officially acknowledged. The contract is unspoken.  No one ever actually speaks about it.  It is, in a political sense, the elephant in the living room.   

Anyone who has ever lived in an alcoholic family knows exactly what I am talking about here.  Silence is demanded and reality must never under any circumstances be addressed.  The family secret must be kept at all costs. If you want to educate yourself with an outstanding tome on this subject of American Empire, go buy the book “A People’s History of the United States” by Howard Zinn.  He is still alive (I think)  and is a veteran of the U.S. Army Air Force of World War II.  This man has seen combat, he is a college professor, a renowned writer and he talks about these very things we refuse to see.  He understands American Empire.  He could explain in much more detail and in a much clearer fashion than I ever could.  Its a long read, but a very good one. 

So it really isn’t a matter of arguing whether or not we are an Empire.  We act like an empire, we expect the fruits of empire and we demand the allegiance of any and all who would come in contact with us when we go after the goals of empire.  Of course we are an empire!  That should be self evident to anyone who has ever read the newspaper for more than a week and is over fifteen years old.  The question is not whether or not we are an empire; the question is, how does a Republic that has morphed into an Empire maintain its national core value system? 

How do we maintain real and substantive due process systems when we are growing more and more fascistic with every month ?  All empires do this by the way.  It is inevitable.  Eventually all people who lead empires become emperors.  Take a warning here.  Think about that.

According to Webster’s Dictionary, empire is primarily defined as follows:   Empire: a major political unit having a territory of great extent or a number of territories or peoples under a single sovereign authority ; especially : one having an emperor as chief of state (2): the territory of such a political unit b: something resembling a political empire ; especially : an extensive territory or enterprise under single domination or control.  Without going into a long winded argument here, this is clearly us. Now the only real question is, are we willing to suffer the inevitable lack of freedoms that empire brings upon its people in order to be an empire? 

If you say yes, you do not need to read any further.  I only hope that you die before they come to your house to force your children into a labor situation, take more than a rational share of your income for taxes and basically set up a never ending line of elites to run what is left of this country.  If you are willing to live in empire, go back to watching television.  The rest of this article will bore you. If you are not willing to leave in empire, you must really do only one thing.  You must constantly ask the ‘powers that be’ in your community and the people who represent you in Washington D.C. what they are going to do to ensure we return to our republican traditions.  I mean republican in the sense of a republic, not in the sense of the GOP of course. We may already be too late. 

Our Presidents start wars through deliberate manipulation of intelligence, our high level government officials are lackeys for various powerful interest groups throughout the world, some of whom none of us know about.  Our Armed Forces get more and more detached from the people from whom they spring as every month goes by and the federal government grows more and more arrogant with its decision making power over national assets and resources; and why not?  Who is to stop them? Will it be you or me? 

I think not; at least not if we stay silent and uninformed. Empires grow by millimeters, they do not just show up one morning in the paper. They take a century or more to slowly build and then the ideals of a republic simply give way to raw, naked power.  We are there already.  It may be too late to turn back.  Are you willing to do what must be done to recapture our republic? 

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ABOUT THE AUTHOR: Tom Barnes is a retired Coast Guard warrant officer, CWO3 USCG (Ret.)B.A. B.S. M.Ed. M.A. M.A.,  a retired employee development specialist from the Smithsonian Institution and he spent a little time teaching public high school business courses in Northern Virginia after he left the Service.  He is a totally disabled veteran. Author of the book "The McGurk".  Tom can be reached via email at: [email protected]