Once a great nation, now what?

There once was this great nation that rose from such humble beginnings. Its great founders envisioned a nation that was free from kings and queens, and popes and bishops. A nation to be governed by the consent of the PEOPLE and for the PEOPLE and not by aristocrats; even though some of them were in fact aristocrats. A nation that had check and balances for which they assumed would protect the nation from tyranny from within.

This nation they envisioned did rise out of the ashes of revolution. It was very poor at first, had to borrow money from any friend it could find. So in it very beginning it was already deeply in debt, about 1 trillion in today’s dollars.

This nation has gone through many challenges to its very survival, wars external and internal, but it survived and continued in its ideal of freedom and liberty, governed by the people and not an oligarchy.

The industrial revolution came to the shores of this struggling nation and wealth abound as technology was creating profits to merchants in huge quantities. But there was a need for capital to raise the money to create all these new technologies. The Corporation was the answer; sell some ownership shares to those who had wealth for some of their money. This generated even more huge profits and incomes to those who could afford to invest in this industrial revolution.

But the nations wealth was being more and more accumulated by a select few and as they acquired this wealth, the average American  were being left behind. As has been clearly articulated in history this greed and accumulation of wealth in the gilded period and again in the roaring twenties, perpetrated the total collapse of the economy of this still young nation. Poverty was rampant, starvation and death was all around.

The country had shifted from a merchant-agrarian economy to a corporate economy. This gave corporations consolidated power through their money. It was so simple to give politicians money or other perks so they would have access to their power in government.

The industrial revolution also created new demands for the infrastructure of improved roads, highways to move these goods. The trails that were carved out were not very accommodating to these new wheeled machines. It was slow and cause great damage to these fragile automobiles. The capitalist proclaimed, “We need paved roads so we can get our goods to market in one piece, but we don’t want to pay for it, because we don’t know what road we will need as our markets grow across the nation. Please government, borrow our money and you build the roads, we will pay you taxes to do this.” They also asked to make them the same across all states so that it is easier for their drivers to find their way. The people of the nation agreed and we have an increasable highway and freeway system across the nation with the same style of signs and markings to make interstate travel much easier.

But don’t stop there; we need airports for these new flying machines. They are wonderful when you have to get yourself or package to a far distant location faster than the trains. 

Besides you could not take the same train company for more than a few hundred miles and then you would have to get off and buy a ticket on another train operated by another company to go for another few hundred miles, and then do it all over again. So the capitalist who made huge sums of money building these non-compatible rail lines but starting to see the hand writing on the wall that this new truck driving over the new roads would take business away from them. So they too asked the people of the nation to buy their rail lines so they can be standardized. That way their trains can travel from coast to coast without having to change track gage.

While you are at it, we capitalists need large sea ports to import and export all the products we are making. So would you please spend more of the people's money and built these massive structures? The people said yes, it does make good economic sense. 

Now electricity was the energy of the day, as it is today, so the capitalist asked the people, please spend the people’s money to build the dams to make electricity and subsidize the construction of the power lines stretching from coast to coast. But because it was not profitable to string power to small rural towns and villages, you also pay for the lines to these locations?  The people saw the benefit in doing this, so yes, they said.

Again the capitalists need fresh water for their workers and their plants. So like before they asked the people to use their money to build these great pipe lines and treatment plants to bring to the people clean fresh water. This was also a good idea and the people built massive water and waste pipelines that feed an incredible grown in the economy.

All of this was built with money borrowed from the capitalists and paying it back to them with interest, more money that is. These capitalists not only got their money back, but made extra money as well. Who paid them for this money? Well the people did. Of course 1% of the people are these capitalists so they also paid a small sum to themselves, but the majority of it came from the workers of this great nation.

But the burden was getting too great for the people to pay for this entire infrastructure, so they are asking the capitalist to increase the amount they pay into the system to maintain and improve this entire infrastructure. But the capitalists reply, aren’t you happy enough just having a job. Why do you want to have a better life and benefit from the money and your labor in creating this great nation?  The people said no, we want to enjoy life as well from the labor of our time.

So the people using their power of self governance established departments within their government to improve their lives, like clean air, public education, national parks and recreation, energy management, health research, tracking diseases to protect the public, checking our food so it won’t kill us as was doing and to create an air traffic management system to keep us safe as we are flying above the earth and humans below.

The people also realized they had trusted the capitalist too much, as many of the products they made would harm or kill them, so they asked their government to protect them from these harmful products. Now you have much higher trust in the products that are produced today.

Laborers still need help to protect them from greedy employers who put them at risk of harm or death. So the people asked their government to regulate employers so they must make as safe as possible the work place, be fair when they hire and fire and promote people. This has reduced the loss of life and harm to employees like no other period of time in all of history.

The capitalist knew the only way to obtain total control of governance is to eliminate government so that everyone would be dependent on them for everything, for a price. The new project was established called starve the beast, that is spend the country into oblivion at the same time taxes are reduced on these capitalists, thus starving the nation of revenue. The only result would be the systematic elimination of all the departments and services provided by the people’s government. Costly wars have been waged at the same time as revenue declined from reduced taxes on the wealthy. The starvation has been completed now.

But it’s not quite complete yet. The capitalist want to keep all their money now and complete the elimination all the services and protections provided by the people’s government.

To do this they have to now use their great wealth to sway the election process, the only thing they don’t have total control over yet. So they bought the courts to insure they could use this wealth to overwhelm the election process so they are assured the right persons are placed in the seats of governance.

This where this once great nation finds itself and the choice we make in November will determine if the capitalists complete their plan, or do the people stop them and regain the power they once had.

That is the biggest question of this century.