Power

The U.S. is the strongest military power, the biggest corporate power, and the wealthiest nation. Even though we spend more on the military than all other nations combined, the military is seeking to spend more on the development of even more dominant weapons. Even though our corporations are the most powerful, they still want fewer restrictions placed on them. Even though we are the most financially secure, we seek ways to get more money from every nation we can.

When a country bases its currency on the dollar, we have a certain amount of influence on their economy because we can hold up financial transactions. One reason we invaded Iraq was because they had changed their currency to the Euro, which weakened the dollar. After the invasion, their currency was changed back to the dollar. A large part of the financial difficulties that Cuba and Venezuela are experiencing are due to financial destabilization of their economy by the U.S., because they have nationalized certain businesses. The greatest fear of capitalistic corporations is the nationalization of businesses because it might spread to other countries. But don’t other countries have the right to decide without U.S. interference?

Both political parties get most of their money from powerful people, businesses and corporations. In exchange for million dollar donations, corporations get additional access/influence. Many times, that access results in billion dollar contracts for those companies. In exchange for favorable media reporting, regulations can be loosened allowing media conglomerates to expand even larger. 

The United States is so powerful, that most of the time we dictate what is done in the United Nations. In order to get our way, we use a carrot (loans, bribes), but then a stick (vetoes, covert operations, sanctions, threats, military invasions, financial undermining, etc). With control of Iraqi oil, we now can turn off the supply to any country that doesn’t comply with our demands. Control of Iraqi oil is a huge amount of leverage on a country, so we will not turn over control. In this way, we can get more countries to go along with whatever we want.

We are losing the primary protection built in to the Constitution, the division of powers.

The Republicans have control of the Executive, half of the Congressional, and the Judicial branches of the government. Since it is only a slight majority, the Republican Party is working towards making it a stranglehold on the government. They are achieving their goal by using morally-questionable tactics: digging up any bit of dirt, then turning it into a political issue; getting information by illegal means; using innuendos; using the media to force any topic into public awareness for political gain (see Propaganda, Neo-cons, United States, Campaign Finance Reform).

A few major corporations own the media, and the owners are in the back pockets of the Republican Party. Even news reporters are not allowed to write the stories, or to do the investigative journalism that they would like to, if they were critical of the Bush administration (see Corporate Media). Currently, the Republican Party is close to achieving power over all branches of government, in the most militarily and financially powerful nation in the World. Their party is being controlled by a small group of Neo-cons, who have the stated goal of world domination (see Neo-cons). These people have already invaded two countries killing tens of thousands, have created the largest deficits, and have caused the U.S. economy to effectively loose more than a trillion dollars. Yet, with their superb propaganda machine, the voting public may just hand them all the keys to the country. All they have to do is say we might be attacked by terrorists, and the public falls for another distortion of the truth. The public never seems to catch on that other countries fear and hate us because of the Neo-con agenda.

The U.S. is the strongest military power, the biggest corporate power, and the wealthiest nation, yet like an insecure bully; we push everybody else around, and then wonder why other countries don’t like us.