250 Years of the Declaration of Independence, Democracy Gone Astray

• The Founding Fathers and Their Fear of the People
• Roman Symbols, Roman Tradition
• Exclusive from the Get Go
• Citizens United - One Dollar, One Vote
• The Military-Industrial Complex and the Eternal War
• 250 Years Later

Happy Birthday USA, although that is not quite right, since the United States were actually founded in September 1788. Today, on July 4th, the anniversary of the Declaration of Independence is celebrated, and in their self image, the United States of America see themselves as the oldest democracy in the world. Yet upon closer inspection, this claim is more illusion than reality, as the country was never intended to be a democracy in the true sense from the very beginning. The states of the United States were designed as republics modelled after the Roman Republic, which in truth was an aristocracy.

§The Founding Fathers and Their Fear of the People

In fact, one must assume that the founding fathers feared direct democracy. James Madison warned in Federalist Papers No. 10 about the tyranny of the majority. The common rabble of have-nots should not truly be able to decide, power should remain in the hands of the wealthy. So they built a system of separation of powers and indirect elections. The Senate was not initially elected by the people. The President is still determined through the Electoral College. Lifetime judicial appointments remove one of the three branches of government entirely from democratic control.

§Roman Symbols, Roman Tradition

Roman symbols of power are also omnipresent. It is no coincidence that the second chamber is called the Senate and finds its British counterpart in the House of Lords. Capitol Hill bears a Roman name. The architecture of Washington copies the Roman Republic. This aesthetic is no accident. It reveals the true model. A republic of elites, disguised as rule by the people.

This becomes most apparent in the example of the fasces, a bundle of rods in Latin. This symbol can be found in the Senate behind the speaker’s podium, on the Senate seal, and even at the Lincoln Memorial. A bundle of wooden rods strapped around an axe, it stands for a clear principle. A single rod is fragile, the bundled sheaf is unbreakable. The axe symbolises the power to punish and execute. In the Roman Republic, the lictors, the attendants of the consuls, carried the fasces before them. The bundle embodied absolute authority, the right to arrest and, if necessary, to kill.

§Exclusive from the Get Go

Not particularly democratic. And the people who brought these symbols from antiquity into their present were well aware of their meaning. It signals the rule of dignitaries or the elite over the people. A meaning that the fascists also adopted, using the fasces as the namesake for their movement. Thus this symbol has been partly banned in Europe since the Second World War. The USA, on the other hand, never abolished it, and why would they, since it reflects the actual conditions so perfectly. Visitors to the Senate literally sit in the shadow of a symbol that is associated worldwide with fascist violence. That it dominates the heart of the American centre of power reveals in an impressive way the true nature of elite rule through violence.

American politics were exclusive from the very beginning. As in many nations of its era, women were not allowed to vote. Slavery coexisted with the recognition that “all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.” But white men without property were also excluded. The ideal of popular sovereignty was a lie from the start for most inhabitants of the new state. Rather, it was an advertising slogan to attract cheap labour for the masters of the new land.

§Citizens United - One Dollar, One Vote

The manifestation of this already lived lie came in 2010. The Supreme Court, with its decision in Citizens United vs. FEC, affirmed what had long been practice and finally opened the floodgates for unlimited campaign spending by corporations. Money was already synonymous with political power before, but now this condition was cemented into constitutional law. One dollar, one vote, is the new official rule. Super PACs flood elections with millions. Candidates are bought by a handful of billionaires, not elected by voters. The only difference from the time before Citizens United is that the purchasability of the political system no longer needs to be hidden.

Lobbying and corruption are not the exception, they are the system. Several thousand lobbyists work in Washington. They often write legislation word for word. The revolving door between government and Wall Street spins in both directions. Goldman Sachs executives in the Treasury Department. Defence lobbyists in the Department of Defence. The Paulsons, Rubins, Mnuchins, Mattises and Espers come and go, and this under every administration. The people have no say in this. The interests of the common man are swept aside by paid agents of the corporations. Money is power, power is money, and that is what it is all about.

And this from the very beginning, because the disenfranchisement of the population is no accident, but the result of a constitutional design that always granted economic elites more influence than the majority of citizens. Tax laws favour the wealthiest. Regulations are written for large corporations. Banks that cause financial crises are bailed out. Those who do not belong to the elite may only dream the American dream.

§The Military-Industrial Complex and the Eternal War

We have already mentioned the defence lobbyists. The interplay of war profiteers and power elites is the military-industrial complex. President Eisenhower warned about it as early as 1961. His warning went unheeded. The USA have been in a state of permanent warfare since the end of the Second World War, which is then not called war, since it concerns “Authorizations for Use of Military Force”. Vietnam, Iraq, Afghanistan, Syria, Yemen, Iran. The War on Drugs, the War on Terror. The enemy changes, the war machinery remains.

This eternal war serves several functions for the financial oligarchy. It justifies domestic repression. The Patriot Act massively curtailed civil liberties after 2001. Surveillance was expanded. Unwelcome whistleblowers like Chelsea Manning or Julian Assange are persecuted, potential whistleblowers and activists are proactively deterred from their intentions. All of this happens in the name of national security, an eternal struggle against an enemy never defeated. 1984 says hello.

Furthermore, the constant war distracts from domestic problems. Bad schools, crumbling infrastructure, lack of health insurance for millions of people, the pandemic of drug addiction. The list grows longer, not shorter. But instead of addressing and solving these problems, trillions of dollars flow into the next weapons system. The military budget consumes more than the defence spending of the next ten countries combined. This money is missing for hospitals, schools and housing. The common people are impoverished.

War has become part of American identity. War is American identity. Every man for himself, and us against them. Without an external enemy, the system risks collapsing in on itself. National unity is created through shared threats, while social coldness reigns within. The enemy images change. Communism, terrorism, Russia, China, Iran. The function remains the same. A people in constant fear is easier to control.

§250 Years Later

Not much that the USA can celebrate after 250 years. The record is sobering. What began as a republican design with aristocratic elements is today an open financial oligarchy. Formally the people hold power, but not in practice. The appearance of democracy is maintained, the elections a periodic mega-show, while corporations, lobbyists and the military-industrial complex make the real decisions.

As a small boy I was also a fan of the USA, who was not. Upon closer examination I can no longer find good in it. But I do not have a solution either. I do know, however, that the next elections or more beautiful Sunday speeches will not help. What remains is the admission that the American system was built on a lie from the very beginning. “The shining city on the hill”, “the beacon of democracy”, is in truth the purgatory of the elite’s self interest. The USA were never a democracy. Today it is clearer than ever, it is a plutocracy of corporations. Anyone who wants to understand this wrong turn from the idea of freedom to the here and now must begin with the Roman columns of the Capitol and ends with the billionaires who pull the strings in the background.