Overview: As America celebrates its 250th birthday, the author questions whether the nation has become an exception to the rule that governments tend towards aristocratic forms, acting exclusively in the interests of the ruling class. The author explores the different ways power is exercised in America, including political, military, religious, economic, and ecological, and the moral dilemmas and consequences that evolve from the decisions of those in power. The author highlights the suffering and sacrifice experienced in the building of the nation, as well as the racial exploitation at home and abroad, and concludes that America has failed to establish justice, insure domestic tranquility, promote the general welfare, and secure the blessings of liberty to ourselves and our posterity.
S.E. Williams
In his futuristic book “Children of the Dune,” author Frank Herbert wrote, “Governments, if they endure, always tend increasingly toward aristocratic forms. No government in history has been known to evade this pattern. And as the aristocracy develops, government tends more and more to act exclusively in the interests of the ruling class – whether that class be hereditary royalty, oligarchs of financial empires, or entrenched bureaucracy.”
As America celebrates its 250th birthday, I’d like to advocate for America being an exception to this rule… but, of course, judging from the nation’s history, current direction and priorities, I’d say Herbert’s assessment as it relates to the U.S.A. appears to be right on point.
In his book Herbert explores several challenging topics in relation to power. He does so by looking at the different ways power is exercised including political, military, religious, economic and ecological.
There are also dilemmas and consequences that evolve from the decisions of those in power that often present moral dilemmas that involve suffering and sacrifice—but in real life, rarely are the powerful negatively impacted by these dilemmas. . . such is the story of America.
America does, however, center the stories of sacrifice and suffering in the building of this nation as experienced on the one hand by the powerful, those “founding fathers” so celebrated in our history books. Their stories of sacrifice and personal suffering as they seemed to almost “single handedly” design, built, and over the years, save America–often from itself. On the other hand, we also learn a lot about those white pilgrims/settlers who braved what we were told was the first Thanksgiving and ultimately faced the unknown as they hitched-up their wagon trains and headed west.
And so every 4th of July I ask myself, how do we celebrate a nation that watered the land with the blood of its first people and took the scalps of their men, women and children for ego and profit.
How do we celebrate a nation that tortured, brutally raped and impregnated Black women and then sold their own bi-racial children into slavery even as they also tortured, starved, murdered and sold untold numbers of Black people away from their families.
How do we celebrate an America that for the most part, totally ignores the “Great MAAFA” or African Holocaust as we often refer to it in the Black community—a centuries long travesty that destroyed generations of Black lives here in America and throughout the diaspora. This act also destabilized the Motherland by robbing it of its most valued treasure—its people.
Though rarely discussed here, America was also complicit is the colonization and exploitation of Africa. In one example, according to Oxford University, “By the turn of the twentieth century, the British and U.S. Empires were intricately entangled throughout the world. Nowhere was this more evident than in Britain’s African colonies where Americans co-opted and collaborated with British imperial rule and its agents.”
Nowhere was this more evident than in racist South Africa where American engineers were prized by British imperial corporations for the knowledge they brought to the development of the diamond and gold mines of Southern Africa. So, in the name of “We the people…” America has practiced racial exploitation at home and enabled it abroad.
Today, we are bearing witness to this same type of alliance with racist white South Africans. At the behest of the world’s richest man and most notorious racist, Elon Musk—himself of South African origin—these people are in the process of migrating here by the thousands and many will bring their racist ideology with them. Meanwhile, Trump has referred to Black African nations as shit hole countries and is working aggressively to deport every Black and brown person ICE can get its hands on.
“One of the saddest lessons of history is this: If we’ve been bamboozled long enough, we tend to reject any evidence of the bamboozle. We’re no longer interested in finding out the truth. The bamboozle has captured us. It’s simply too painful to acknowledge, even to ourselves, that we’ve been taken. Once you give a charlatan power over you, you almost never get it back.”
Carl Sagan, The Demon-Haunted World: Science as a Candle in the Dark
Some of you may also recall that America and Israel were among the last nations in the world to pull support from the Apartheid government of South Africa.
We see this same behavior on behalf of “We the people” today as America continues to support Israel, thus enabling the genocide of thousands and thousands of brown people in the West Bank.
To celebrate 250 years of this kind of behavior at home and abroad requires more than a forgiving heart. And these stories are not unique to people of color although many whites may think that they are.
Whites—even poor whites to some extent— are empowered in this culture but many have forgotten or perhaps never knew that has not always been the case in America.
Digging through history you learn many poor whites were initially kidnapped and brought here against their will or signed years-long contracts of indentured service in order to come to America. I don’t recall reading this in my history books at school but it is posted on the US. Department of Labor’s website: “On August 5, 1774, just a month before the First Continental Congress convened in Philadelphia, the ship Needham landed in New York from Newry, England. . . The ship’s cargo was white indentured servants. On arrival they protested to the authorities that they had been kidnapped in Ireland and had suffered “bad usage” on the voyage across the Atlantic.” This aspect of supplying some of the nation’s labor is contrary to the type of America we are told the “founding fathers” sought to create.
When America was founded, poor whites could not vote even though the goal of this country’s “founding fathers” was to create a self-governing democracy. They couldn’t vote because only those who had a so called “vested interest” in the country were entitled to this right. Having a “vested interest” meant owning land. Of course, just like in today’s America, most poor folks–even poor whites, do not own property–though many more do than people of color. Having the right to vote, however, would quickly change for white men in America but it would take nearly a century and a half for this right to be extended to white women.
The fight for true suffrage continues for Blacks in America, along with the fight for equity in all aspects of American life.
Although Blacks were usually on the margins, the power brokers throughout this nation’s history offered something for everyone. In exploring the many faces of power in Dune, Herbert considered political, military, religious, economic, and ecological power.
America has leveraged the power of politics, the military, the economy and religion to enhance the lifestyles of the “rich and famous,” and others who are comfortable. In Dune, however, Herbert also looked at power’s impact on a number of issues including the human costs of suffering and sacrifice in relation to power.
Historically, America ignores these costs until the cries of those in pain can no longer be ignored and even then the nation then offers a begrudging, oftentimes disingenuous response. The list of those who have cried out, advocated, and fought back is long —Native Americans; Black Americans; Women; Gays and Lesbians (including gay men who were allowed to languish and die of Aids); Immigrants and those legally seeking asylum; Japanese who were interred; Chinese who built the railroads; coal miners dying of Black lung disease; military veterans including those who suffered from agent orange, blue water veterans who served on ships filled with asbestos, and those impacted by the burn pits in the Middle East; the homeless (including a large percentage of our veterans); Black men who were coerced/volunteered for the Tuskegee experiment; Black children purposely exposed to lead poisoning in Baltimore; Black children shuttled through the school to prison pipeline; all children deprived of SNAP benefits; seniors in need of in home care; those who are over-incarcerated and/or wrongfully sentenced to death; and so many other Americans without enough money or power to garner national attention. Sadly, this is a partial list.
How do we celebrate America this 4th of July? By remembering the potential, the possibility of the implied commitment to one another as stated in the Preamble to this nation’s Constitution. We often place our focus on its charge to form “a more perfect union.” But that is only part of what we are charged to do. At the same time the Preamble also charges us “ . . . to establish justice, insure domestic tranquility, provide for the common defense, promote the general welfare, and secure the blessings of liberty to ourselves and our posterity—all of the things listed above that we are failing to do.
The only exception to this might be providing for the common defense, and yet at times, even that is questionable when we consider December 7, 1941; July 27, 1996; September 11, 2001; December 2, 2015; and who can forget January 6, 2021.
Beyond that, as we consider this 250th anniversary of America, I believe it is time that we consider this nation with our eyes wide open, not misted with patriotism or clouded with a false narrative about being this shining city on a hill—we are not there yet. With truth, cooperation, everyone doing their part, and right-minded leaders, it is possible that one day we will be.
Of course, this is just my opinion. I’m keeping it real.