A Warning from the Past....

When the United States came into being in the late 1700s, there was great debate as the founders tried to envision a governmental structure that would prevent the rise of a dictator or aristocracy that would take control of the levers of power and foreclose the control of the new government by the people.  The brilliance of their creation gave us the Constitution and a society based on the rule of law and the establishment of regular elections to be able to change the course of government.

My friend Steve sent me an article from a website called www.CommonDreams.org  that I found prescient.  It highlights the writings of Alexander Hamilton in August of 1792 when Hamilton was the Secretary of the Treasury for George Washington.  

Hamilton’s article was a ‘rebuttal to those who were skeptical that an American democratic republic could survive over time, when buffeted by the winds and forces of accumulated wealth and the love of some people for aristocracy.’

Hamilton’s premise was that as long as we continued to have regular elections, the oligarchs and wealthy would not be able to gain a toehold in government.

Hamilton then wrote,

 “The truth unquestionably is, that the only path to a subversion of the republican system of the Country is, by flattering the prejudices of the people, and exciting their jealousies and apprehensions, to throw affairs into confusion, and bring on civil commotion. Tired at length of anarchy, or want of government, they may take shelter in the arms of monarchy for repose and security.”

Hamilton reasoned that it wasn’t the politicians who would promote the destruction of a state devoted to the ‘general welfare’, but rather it would be the Uber-rich. So, if a group of people with massive riches were to succeed in taking over most of the levers of power in American government, Hamilton believed, our nation then would, actually, be vulnerable to a despot rising to the presidency.  He believed that the real threat to our democracy came from the super rich.

The super rich of Hamilton’s time are the morbidly wealthy billionaires of today who have set out to seize control of every aspect of the political life of America.

Hamilton wrote,

 “When a man unprincipled in private life, desperate [hugely wealthy] in his fortune, bold in his temper, possessed of considerable talents, having the advantage of military habits—despotic in his ordinary demeanour—known to have scoffed in private at the principles of liberty—when such a man is seen to mount the hobby horse of popularity—to join in the cry of danger to liberty—to take every opportunity of embarrassing the General Government & bringing it under suspicion—to flatter and fall in with all the non sense of the zealots of the day—It may justly be suspected that his object is to throw things into confusion that he may ‘ride the storm and direct the whirlwind.”

Does that sound like an uncomfortably familiar scenario?

To quote from the article in Common Dreams,

 ‘Now that the U.S. Supreme Court, in a series of 5-4 decisions, has handed the power to alter elections to a few hundred billionaires and well-funded organizations (including foreign governments), and billionaire oligarch Trump has taken the White House with the help of billionaire oligarch Murdoch, Hamilton’s nightmare is nearly realized.
The question now is whether enough Americans have awakened to this reality to show up in November to defy the wealthy purveyors of fear and discontent who want complete and final control over our nation.’

So, the need to save our republic from those who are stealing access to the levers of government perhaps is now more apparent.  Hamilton envisioned it 200 years ago, and warned us about the rise of someone like Trump.  For those of you who want to read the entire article, here is the link:

https://tinyurl.com/y8eot2xu

VOTE in November like your life depended on it…..it does.

BTW a few more thoughts:
Call your representatives in Congress and ask them if they really believe, as Mike Pompeo does, that selling lethal arms for profit to the Saudis, who we know will use them to kill children in Yemen, is more important than cutting off the sales of those arms and letting those children live.

Also, do you really believe we can’t delay the confirmation of Kavanaugh until we find out if he is a rapist?  Call your Republican congressmen and object if you are rational.