I was reading the book The Perils of The Republic of The United States of America by Percy Magan Tilson, History forgotten makes children play on Mistakes
Thus it is that the matter of American imperialism and expansion is inseparably linked with the question of large standing armies. They are Siamese twins, both alike being pregnant with a “manifest destiny” for this Republic; namely, the ruin of free government.
Portland, Oregon, March 6. Credit: WW Photo: Lyn Neeley.
Portland, Oregon
Cries of “Abolish NATO!” and “Resist U.S. imperialism!” echoed around Pioneer Courthouse Square in Portland, Oregon, March 6. These were the phrases that garnered the loudest cheers from the nearly 160 protesters gathered to protest NATO encroachment on Eastern Europe. A coalition of groups organized the “Stop NATO War on Russia! Stop the Sanctions!” rally.
Portland, Oregon, March 6. WW Photo: Lyn Neeley.
Workers World Party collaborated with the International League of Peoples’ Struggle to initiate the demonstration. Danny O’Brien, who has written for Workers World on the subject, gave much needed historical context to the ongoing conflict in Ukraine.
“The people of the Ukraine will see their country torn apart further by imperialist powers,” O’Brian explained. “Because of the sanctions levied against them, Russia’s people could potentially starve, be hit with massive hikes in poverty rates, lose access to proper medicines and fuels for heating and transport. Europe’s working class will suffer from a rise in inflation and poverty. U.S. workers will face rising gas prices, potentially lower wages, higher inflation and a cultural uptick in racism, xenophobia and blind patriotism.”
As should be expected, local news coverage of the event by KOIN TV completely ignored the anti-NATO emphasis of the rally, co-opting it into the State Department’s narrative that places the blame entirely on Russia. Luckily, their words could not hide their footage of protesters with anti-imperialist signs.
Also speaking were representatives from the Resist U.S.-Led War Movement, BAYAN, Veterans for Peace and Extinction Rebellion.
Madison Johnson
Columbus sailed with the intent of finding, not the West, but the East Indies. To the day of his death he never discovered his mistake. It was his intent there to plant the monarchical tyranny of Spain. Four hundred years have passed away since then, and it is passing strange that these United States, after breaking the power of Spain in the West, are even now engaged in fastening upon that land which Columbus sought to reach, those same Spanish principles of power and tyranny which he would fain have taken there.
An Old World power has been driven from Cuba, but an Old World idea has invaded and well-nigh captured the republic of the United States,-the idea that all men are not created equal, and that governments do not derive their just powers from the consent of the governed. There have been times when the ship of state in the United States has been partially diverted from her course, and greed has used her officers for private ends and personal emoluments. But now the very foundation-stones of the fabric governmental are being undermined.
Prior to the year 1898 this government was a republic pure and simple. Its foundations were laid in principle, and not in power. It was not an empire in any sense of the word, for the foundations of an empire are laid in power, and not in principle. It was built upon that everlasting rock that right makes might. Against this the coming of floods and the blowing and beating of winds are alike powerless, for it standeth sure and falleth not forever. But empires, on the other hand, are built upon that sinking sand that might makes right. Against these the floods come, and the winds blow and beat, and they fall, and great is the fall thereof. PRUS 80.4
To-day this nation is in danger of abandoning the rock and settling upon the sand. The love of power, so prone to the human breast, is smothering priceless, eternal principle. From being a government of the people, by the people, and for the people, it is being rapidly transformed into a government of some of the people, by a few of the people, for all the people. This is imperialism as opposed to republicanism, and this is national apostasy. PRUS 81.1
Until the summer of 1898 the word “imperialism” was but little heard from the lips of Americans. Now the very atmosphere is fairly drenched with it. A perfect wave of imperialism has swept over the land, and the desire for an Imperial America, or an “Imperial Republic,” as it has been styled, sits supreme upon hundreds of scores of souls. But an imperial republic cannot exist. With equal sense and propriety one might talk about “good badness.”
What means this wild babel of tongues clamoring for subjects over which to exercise sway? What means this strange jargon, formed from an Old World monarchical vocabulary? Are men crazed with the madness sometimes begotten by victory at arms? Are men drunken with the lust of colonial empire? Are men raving in the delirium of that dread fever, earth-hunger, in which all the monarchies of the Old World are writhing? Think they in the hour of triumph over a foe, outclassed at every point, to build a tower of national greatness which will reach to the very heavens, and at the same time to lay its unrighteous foundations on the stricken forms of vassal peoples? The result will surely be as it was before in the case of the builders of Babel, there will be confusion of tongues, and the dissolution of the nation.
https://m.egwwritings.org/en/book/1619.584#584
“No candid observer of current events will deny that even to-day the spirit of the new policy awakened by the victories and conquests achieved in the Spanish war, and by the occurrences in the Philippines, has moved even otherwise sober-minded persons to speak of the constitutional limitations of governmental power with a levity which a year ago would have provoked serious alarm and stern rebuke. We are loudly told by the advocates of the new policy that the Constitution no longer fits our present conditions and aspirations as a great and active world-power, and should not be permitted to stand in our way. Those who say so forget that it is still our Constitution; that while it exists, its provisions as interpreted by our highest judicial tribunal are binding upon our actions as well as upon our consciences; that they will be binding, and must be observed until they are changed in the manner prescribed by the Constitution itself for its amendment; and that if any power not granted by the Constitution is exercised by the government or any branch of it, on the ground that the Constitution ought to be changed in order to fit new conditions, or on any other grounds, usurpation in the line of arbitrary government is already an accomplished fact. And if such usurpation be submitted to by the people, that acquiescence will become an incentive to further usurpation which may end in the complete wreck of constitutional government.
“Such usurpations are most apt to be acquiesced in when, in time of war, they appeal to popular feeling in the name of military necessity, or of the honor of the flag, or of national glory. In a democracy acting through universal suffrage, and being the government of public opinion informed and inspired by discussion, every influence is unhealthy that prevents men from calm reasoning. And nothing is more calculated to do that than martial excitements which stir the blood. We are told that war will lift up people to a higher and nobler patriotic devotion, inspire them with a spirit of heroic self-sacrifice, and bring their finest impulses and qualities into action, This it will, in a large measure, if the people feel that the war is a necessary or a just one. But even then its effects upon the political as well as the moral sense are confusing. When the fortunes of war are unfavorable, almost everything that can restore them will be called legitimate, whether it be in harmony with sound principles or not. When the fortunes of war are favorable, the glory of victory goes far to justify, or at least to excuse, whatever may have been done to achieve that victory, or whatever may be done to secure or increase its fruits.
“History shows that military glory is the most unwholesome food that democracies can feed upon. War withdraws, more than anything else, the popular attention from those problems and interests which are, in the long run, of the greatest consequence. It produces a strange moral and political color-blindness. It creates false ideals of patriotism and civic virtue.
Thus it is that the matter of American imperialism and expansion is inseparably linked with the question of large standing armies. They are Siamese twins, both alike being pregnant with a “manifest destiny” for this Republic; namely, the ruin of free government.
https://m.egwwritings.org/en/book/1619.584#680
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