Either you are, are you aren’t

With Turkey’s recent invasion of Iraq, and its declaration today that it may stay in Iraq for as long as a year, distinct historical memories of the division of Poland come to mind. Just as today, two powerful countries — Nazi Germany and Stalinist Russia — seized geo-political opportunity by invading and occupying an otherwise innocent nation that had wronged neither.

Germany and Russia had even signed a secret agreement before they both invaded to split up Poland. Perhaps something similar (Turkey, after all, is a NATO ally of the United States) might explain United States Defense Secretary Robert Gates’ tepid decree that Turkey’s invasion “be short”.

In the case of Germany and Russia, it might be possible to blame such militarism on the delusions of their leaders, who relied on the tools of a police state to enforce ideologies that could not be questioned.

Is the same thing possible with America?  Is Bush to blame for everything?  It is tempting, and in fact perhaps even psychologically necessary, for Americans to do just that. Yet here lies the greatest delusion of the present. Who is responsible for the war and destruction in the Middle East? It is either the people, or it is their leader. Yet to choose either answer leads to dark conclusions.

If it is the leader who is at fault, then we must conclude that America is no longer a democracy. Surely one cannot place all the blame of Stalin’s murders on the people of Russia; and while historians debate the role of the German people in enabling Hitler, most people agree that Hitler’s use of secret police (the Gestapo) and the brainwashing ideology of National Socialism are also to blame as well. Hitler’s Germany and Stalin’s Russia were hardly democracies in any sense of the word. They were dictatorships that were merciless in expanding their war machines.

If Bush is fully at fault, then the American people are absolved because they do not have any control over him; but if they lack control, then America, too, is not a democracy.

But surely this is not the case.  America is the greatest democracy, or at least that is what many people think today.  So if America is a democracy, then that same democracy must take blame for its failings. For in a democracy, it is the people who govern. So, if a bad policy is implemented, responsibility ultimately lies with the people.   Thus, if there is continued war in the Middle East, it is because the people want it.

These are the two extremes; and somewhere in that range lies present-day American society. It is clear that Bush and his cronies lied to urge the people into war. But once that decision was made, and five years after the United States invaded Iraq, the people have not taken any opportunity to hold the leadership accountable.

No matter the corruption of the present federal regime in America, it is not Nazi Germany, and it is not Stalinist Russia. As days pass, it is transforming into its own unique brand of tyrannical government, which historians and sociologists will study for centuries, as they do with all tyrannical governments. But it is not yet in full flower.

More and more — 7 years after 9/11 and 5 years after the invasion of Iraq, with a collapsed economy, a destroyed dollar, civil liberties crushed, and militarism rampant — the conclusion that the American people themselves play a role in their own sordid remake of the last days of the Roman Republic is difficult to avoid. Doing nothing, too, is a choice.

If Americans watch the news or open the newspaper and read about another death in Iraq or listen to the substance-free discussions between their politicians, and do nothing, that is a choice.

If Americans see the crash of their economy and fail to place accountability with their leaders (unlike, say the Argentinians in the 1990s), that is a choice.

If Americans observe their President make another countless false statement, and grumble and complain but ultimately relent to his authority as President, that is a choice.

If Americans read about declining oil, food, and water resources or the effects of climate change but decide that now is not the time for changes, that is a choice.

Americans today have the highest standard of living on the planet. It is a difficult thing to make sacrifices in the face of the unknown. It is understandable why so many Americans today, so accustomed to prosperity, read these headlines and do not understand how close they are to rapid changes (largely for the worse) to their way of life.

But a choice that is understandable does not make it excusable. A people that claims democratic institutions and values must honor them or stop making claims to democracy. Americans think that by ignoring this decision, it will be made for them, and they are right — but the decision will be made to enslave them, not to liberate them.

In Germany’s case, at least, it is probably unfair to blame the German people totally for the atrocities committed once the police state arrived.

But they bear responsibility for electing Hitler in the first place — he was democratically chosen by a plurality vote as Germany’s leader in 1933.

Perhaps this is splitting hairs. But the point is rather simple: Americans need to decide how much responsibility they want to bear for the current excesses (to be polite) of their present government. Either they bear responsibility, which is a tough thing to admit but would allow them to reclaim their democracy; or they do not bear responsibility, which would allow them to continue to do nothing.

One of these is a harder choice to make.

Of course, if they are not responsible, then there is nothing left to be done, because that would mean that democracy has ceased to exist in America.

This entry was posted on Thursday, February 28th, 2008 at 7:27 pm and is filed under Imperial Decline, Structure and System. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed.