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American Democracy is devolving and crumbling from the inside instead of evolving and growing outwards towards that great purpose for which it was launched about 230 years ago.

That purpose was “life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness” by means of a Republic, if we could keep it, as Ben Franklin said.

It’s all about evolution and survival of the fittest. I believe it applies to governments and civilizations just as much as it does to any other natural biological species of life.

Ancient Greece and ancient Rome, and other civilizations, had their runs, even longer runs than American Democracy, but they never had to deal with the nuclear age.

The nuclear age, which will bring about the fall of life itself — just as sure as those two hijacked jetliners brought the Twin Towers down on 9/11 — began when we dropped atomic bombs on the civilian populations of Hiroshima and Nagasaki in 1945, killing at least 200,000 immediately – with several more hundreds of thousands to die slowly from radiation poisoning.

It’s ironic that our Supreme Allied Commander, Gen. Dwight D. Eisenhower, who led us to victory in Europe, was totally against using it, but our commander-in-chief, President Harry S. Truman, who did not know war close up and personal nearly so well as Eisenhower, was totally for it.

The majority of Americans were thrilled by it because it brought an end to World War II. Of course they didn’t know we had an atomic bomb until it was used for the single purpose of killing as many civilians as possible. The majority of Americans still believe it was the right thing to do. The main claim is that it saved millions of lives. That claim is more propaganda than fact, in my opinion.

My view is that it is morally wrong to deliberately kill unarmed civilians – innocent men, women and children. It was always morally wrong. It was morally wrong in 1945 and it will always be morally wrong and there can never be any excuses that can make it morally right.

Since the dropping of the two atomic bombs on Japan, America has made war against countries around the world, from the Korean War and the Vietnam War to the current wars in Afghanistan and Iraq (under the umbrella of the Global War on Terror) without Congress declaring war even once as required by the Constitution.

During all this time we have also been engaged in almost constant military operations in foreign lands, including backing revolts and insurgency efforts, assassinations and all manner of mischief. All together America has caused the deaths of unknown hundreds of thousands of innocent civilians, both directly and indirectly, from the end of World War II until now.

If we were not actively engaged ourselves with our soldiers, we were assisting in whatever fight was going on by supplying weapons, including chemical and biological weapons to Iraq during its war with Iran, and nuclear weapons to Israel – even missiles and cluster bombs that she used against the civilians of Lebanon, as part of Israel’s crimes against humanity in that recent war that resulted in about 900 Lebanese civilian deaths as compared to about 40 Israeli civilian deaths.

During all this time we haven’t fought a single war in actual defense of America and our democracy, freedoms and liberties. But as a nation we continue to swallow the belief that every single one of our soldiers since WWII died for his country in order for us to remain free.

“Freedom is not free!” That phrase is waved with false pride and the false belief that every time an American soldier dies, it is the price that has to be paid for freedom.

There has not been a single soldier that has died for his country since the end of World War II, permit me to repeat. That was a legitimate war, declared by the Congress of the United States, for the actual defense of America and our freedom.

All of our wars since have been fought because our presidents ordered them fought. Our presidents ordered them fought, not in defense of our freedom, but in order to have their way by using our military as a means to achieve political and economic goals, particularly the never-ending quest for more power and authority over the rest of the world.

No, freedom is not free. It requires the citizens to think and study and stand up for justice and the freedoms that were truly won in the legitimate defense of our nation, and not allow our presidents and special interest groups to take us into illegal and unnecessary wars the way we’ve been doing all these years.

As a people we have fallen down on the job and failed to do our duty as citizens in charge of keeping this republic. We have allowed the current president and his administration to drag us into a bogus, never-ending War on Terror, even giving up our individual rights of personal liberty by allowing Bush to take on powers far beyond those granted by the Constitution – in effect allowing ourselves to be dictated to by a born-again Texas son of a president that believes God put him into office and is directing his every move.

No, freedom is not free. It requires thinking and standing up for justice and the principles upon which our nation was founded. We’ve wasted too much time pledging allegiance to our flag and not spent enough time teaching our children the true principles upon which this country was founded. We’ve even allowed ourselves to forget them, or else we never learned them.

We’ve wasted too much time with trying to bring God into the classroom and the Ten Commandments to the walls, and not spent enough time on the study of justice and maintaining the principles upon which this country was founded – that all men are created equal and endowed by the creator with certain unalienable rights, including “life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness.”

We have forgotten those two all-important words, “all men”, and we have not put enough thought into it to realize that that means all human beings all over the earth, that all nations and peoples who are not yet nations have the God-given rights of life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness – granted by God and not to be dictated by the United States of America.

Regardless of what the boneheads think, survival of the fittest has never meant survival of the strongest or survival of the most cruel and the most brutal. It has never meant that might makes right. That is an easy and constant mistake, based on the reality of the moment and short-term vision, while beyond “the lone and level sands stretch far away.”

America has allowed herself to be a disgrace and a terrible joke before the world. She has allowed the world to see up her skirts, to see American Democracy for what it really is. And it is not a pleasant sight or anything to be proud of.

American Democracy offers no hope for the world, not even for herself. Even if she replaces the Republicans with Democrats in the November elections, it will not change her behavior and her belief that it is her responsibility to rule over the world, because of her wisdom and goodness and the crown of moral authority that Jesus placed on her head.

American Democracy, which at one time truly offered hope for the world, showed how truly weak she was when she was struck in her Achilles’ heel on 9/11 by 19 brave enemy soldiers – or 19 cowardly terrorists, whichever you prefer.

The fact is we didn’t respond with wisdom and justice, but picked up the fire of terrorism and took it to a nation that was not responsible in any way for the 9/11 attack, regardless of our lies then and the lies that Bush and Cheney continue to make.

Remember those minutes between the time that the hijacked airliners hit the Twin Towers and when they fell?

America has still not realized how successful that attack on 9/11 was. It opened a crack in the levee of American Democracy that has been growing ever since.

It gets wider by the day and it’s just a matter of time before the levee gives way and a sea of terror comes rushing in with a great noise and a gnashing of teeth.

Look to Iran, America. Notice how our president refuses to talk to the president of the Republic of Iran, using the idiotic excuse that America doesn’t talk with those who support the terrorists, as we define the term, regardless of the fact that we have devolved into the greatest terrorist nation in the world today.

Bush is setting up an attack on Iran just as he set up an attack on Iraq and is planning an attack on North Korea. Bush may be stupid, but no more stupid than the majority of Americans that believe every word out of his mouth and elected him president.

Where are your Democrats that will be brave enough to say enough is enough, that it is time to talk to our enemies and save what can be saved of that great ship of American Democracy and that hope of peace in the world?

Don’t get me wrong. Bush honestly believes what he believes. His mother and dad, his wife and daughters, all his friends and all his followers honestly believe, along with the majority of those that elected him, that he has done his country proud and means well.

That’s what makes it such a horrible tragedy. We’re talking about a man, along with the vast majority of American people, who truly believe in the simple-minded idea that America was truly endowed by the creator with total righteousness and the right to rule the world because God wants it that way.

Pardon me if I disagree honestly and totally with this kind of ignorance and have made up my mind to fight this kind of stupidity down to my very last breath, if for no other reason than my honest belief that all men truly are endowed by the creator with the unalienable rights of life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness, - and I mean that for the people all over the world.

I don’t care if the founding fathers meant it or not, or if everyone else in the country has a different opinion about it, I mean it, and that’s enough for me to keep trying to wake America up and let her know that she is in danger and endangering the world and life itself on this planet.

That is my duty and should be the duty of every American. It is time to put away the bombs and the bombers and start dealing with the rights of individuals, especially their right to exist in the world, along with their people, according to their own ways and moral inclinations and convictions.

If I could say one final thing to America, it would be back the hell up! Turn around and do your duty! You are on the very verge of falling in defeat and giving up the very cause that gave you birth – American Democracy, what’s the price of it? What’s it really worth? What good is it?

If you are not evolving for the better, you are devolving for the worse. I will never accept cowardly retreat, even if I have to become a revolutionary and speak out against you at every turn. This is my country. I refuse to give it up without fighting for it until the very end.

Let us be clear, America, we have reached that point where the Democrats have become just as morally corrupt as the Republicans, and just as stupid, both morally and logically.

Look at the 410 – 8 vote in the House, where the Democrats gave their support to Israel to continue the killing of Lebanese and Palestinian civilians instead of insisting that they stop their killing immediately.

Look at their tough-guy talk towards Iran, Syria and North Korea, without even questioning our role as boss of the world or bothering to listen to what the leaders of those nations have to say.

American Democracy may come and go, but the cause of liberty never dies. It is universal liberty that makes us whole, just as God intended us to be whole — as the family of man — and our wars will never be able to achieve this, even if it destroys us all down to the last man.

Instead of using its status as the world’s only Super Power to help bring about peace in the world, America is using it to wage war and conflict among nations.

It is time for America to wake up and realize that she has no moral authority to be the world’s dictator.

She has no moral authority to be a law unto herself, making the rules and punishing those that misbehave or fail to bow down to her military power and her nuclear missiles and bombs.

In short, it is time for her to mind her own business, which she has taken too little care of, and give up her rule over the rest of the world and allow us all to live in peace.

Our sole obligation, beyond taking care of our own, should be to help the peoples of the world as much as we can instead of killing their civilians and acting like the big boss. We are all a part of the family of man, created equal with the same unalienable rights as nations and as individuals.

With that, allow me to leave you with the wise words of the English poet, John Donne:

“No man is an Iland, intire of it selfe; every man is a peece of the Continent, a part of the maine; if a Clod bee washed away by the Sea, Europe is the lesse, as well as if a Promantorie were, as well as if a Mannor of thy friends or of thine owne were; any mans death diminishes me, because I am in volved in Mankinde; And therefore never send to know for whom the bell tolls; It tolls for thee.”

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Naman Crowe, a Vietnam veteran, began his award-winning journalism career in 1971. He has written for numerous publications. He can be reached at namancrowe@yahoo.com.
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